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AUTHOR: 


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ATU 


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1904 


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Garnett,  Richard,  1835-190G.  ^     j,,      ,  Po^pff 

A  history  of  Italian  literature,  by  ^^^^'-^{^  G^  ... 

New  York,  D.  Applet  on  and  company,  ie^.    -^^^    • 

xil,  431  p.    m  c'li.     Ulalf-title:  Short  histories  of  the  Uteratures 
of  the  world,  ed.  by  E.  Gosse) 

''Bibliographical  note"  :  p.  419-424. 


018- 


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Copy  in  Paterno.      190«|« 

1.  Italian  literature— Hist.  &  crlt. 


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A 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE 


I 


BY 


RICHARD  GARNETT,   C.  B.,   LL  D. 


NEW    YORK 
D.    APPLETON    AND    COMPANY 

1904 


\ 


-A"T""€.-T 


— *# 


/       V 


Copyright,  1898, 
By  D.  APPLETON  AND  COMPANY. 


I 


from  the  Library  of 

JAN  2  3  1958    ^ 


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PREFACE 


"  I  THINK,**  says  Jowett,  writing  to  John  Addington 
Symonds  (August  4,  1890),  "that  you  are  happy  in 
having  unlocked  so  much  of  Italian  literature,  certainly 
the  greatest  in  the  world  after  Greek,  Latin,  English. 
To  have  interpreted  one  such  literature  and  made  it 
accessible  to  English-speaking  people  seems  to  me  a 
sufficient  result  of  a  life." 

It  seems,  however,  peculiarly  appropriate  that  a  his- 
tory of  Italian  literature  should  follow  and  should  pre- 
cede other  and  parallel  histories.    Symonds  himself  had 
long  before  pointed  out  that  no  man,  at  least  in  a  single 
work  of  moderate  compass,  can  fully  deserve  the  credit 
of   having  unlocked   Italian   literature.     The  study  of 
Italian  letters,  he  had  reminded  us,  cannot  be  profitably 
pursued  by  itself.     The  literature  of  Italy  requires  to 
be  constantly  considered  in  connection  with  other  lit- 
eratures, both  those  from  which  it  is  itself  derived,  and 
those  which  it  has  deeply  influenced.     It  is  more  inti- 
mately affiliated  to  antiquity  than  any  other  European 
'  literature,  and  may  indeed  be  regarded  as  a  continuation 
or  revival  of  the  Latin.     Its  advent  was  long  and  un- 
accountably delayed— it  is  the  youngest  of  all  the  chief 
European  literatures ;  but  when  at  length  it  did  appear, 
its  form,  already  classical,  dispensed  it  from  an  infancy 


VI 


PREFACE 


of  rudeness  and  barbarism.  It  may  be  compared  to 
Hermes,  the  youngest  but  most  precocious  of  the  Gods; 
not,  Hke  Pallas,  born  adult,  but  equal  to  any  achieve- 
ment from  the  cradle : 

"  The  babe  was  born  at  the  first  peep  of  day  ; 
He  began  playing  on  the  lyre  at  noon  ; 
And  the  same  evening  did  he  steal  away 
Apollo  s  herds.'" 

Entering  at  once  upon  a  heritage  of  classical  tradition, 
Italians  began  to  teach  foreign  nations  long  before  they 
found  anything  to  learn  from  them ;  and  this  influence 
is  so  large  a  part  of  the  glory  of  Italy  that  her  literature 
cannot  be  fully  unlocked  to  the  foreigner  unless  he  is 
shown,  not  only  what  she  has  herself  effected  in  letters, 
but  how  greatly  she  has  modified  the  intellectual  develop- 
ment of  other  countries.  She  owes  nothing  to  Chaucer, 
Spenser,  or  Milton ;  but  Chaucer,  Spenser,  and  Milton 
are  infinitely  indebted  to  her.  The  position  she  so  long 
retained  as  the  instructor  and  exemplar  of  civilised 
nations  invests  her  literature  with  an  importance  more 
considerable  than  that  attaching  to  the  merits  of  her 
individual  authors,  illustrious  as  these  are.  Yet  it  is 
impossible  to  elucidate  this  momentous  department  of 
the  subject  in  a  manual  of  four  hundred  pages.  All 
that  can  be  done  is  to  indicate  by  continual  reference 
and  allusion  that  the  need  exists,  and  must  be  satisfied 
elsewhere.  The  influence  upon  Italy  herself  of  foreign 
writers,  and  of  movements  common  to  Europe  in  gen- 
eral, has  required  and  received  fuller  treatment. 

Other  circumstances,  and  these  not  attributable  to  the 
restricted  scale  of  his  undertaking,  conspire  to  afflict 
the  historian  of  Italian  literature  with  a  feeling  of  insuffi- 


PREFACE 


Vll 


ciency.  From  causes  which  will  appear  in  the  course 
of  this  history,  many  of  the  most  gifted  Italians  w^rote 
in  Latin.  From  Petrarch  down  to  Nicius  Erythrasus  a 
succession  of  books  which  would  have  adorned  the  ver- 
nacular literature  if  they  had  belonged  to  it,  appeared 
in  the  common  idiom  of  scholars.  Petrarch*s  Canzo- 
niere,  as  respects  mere  dimension,  is  as  nothing  to  the 
mass  of  his  Latin  works.  Politian  writes  just  enough 
Italian  to  prove  that  he  might  have  revived  Boccaccio 
or  anticipated  Ariosto.  Pontano,  one  of  the  brightest 
intellects  of  Italy,  writes  entirely  in  Latin.  To  exclude 
the  Latin  books  of  such  men  entirely  from  consideration 
is  impossible ;  but  they  cannot  be  adequately  treated 
in  a  professed  history  of  vernacular  literature;  and 
much  else  of  deep  significance  must  be  passed  over 
without  a  hint  of  its  existence. 

Another  circumstance  places  the  Italian  mind  at  a  dis- 
advantage when  contemplated  solely  through  a  literary 
medium.  Literature  in  Italy  is  a  less  exhaustive  mani- 
festation than  elsewhere  of  the  intellect  of  the  nation. 
The  intellectual  glory  of  England,  France,  and  Germany 
depends  mainly  upon  their  authors  and  men  of  science  ; 
their  illustrious  artists,  the  succession  of  great  German 
composers  since  Handel  excepted,  are  for  the  most  part 
isolated  phenomena.  In  the  ages  of  Italian  develop- 
ment, whether  of  the  imitative  arts  or  of  music,  artists 
far  outnumber  authors,  and  the  best  energies  of  the  coun- 
try are  employed  in  artistic  production.  Of  this  super- 
abundant vitality  mere  literary  history  affords  no  trace. 
Michael  Angelo,  one  of  the  greatest  men  the  world  has 
seen,  can  here  claim  no  more  than  a  paragraph  on  the 
strength  of  a  handful  of  sonnets.  It  is  indeed  remark- 
able that  out  of  the  nine  Italians  most  brilliantly  con- 


Vlil 


PREFACE 


\ 


spicuous  in  the  very  first  rank  of  genius  and  achieve- 
ment— Aquinas,  Dante,  Columbus,  Leonardo,  Michael 
Angelo,  Raphael,  Titian,  Galileo,  Napoleon — only  one 
should  have  been  a  man  of  letters.  The  reader,  there- 
fore, who  may  deem  the  field  of  Italian  literature  infer- 
tile in  comparison  with  the  opulence  of  England  or 
France,  must  remember  that  it  expresses  a  smaller  pro- 
portion of  the  country's  benefaction  to  humanity.  Yet 
Jowett  is  perfectly  justified  in  claiming  for  the  Italian 
a  front  place  among  the  literatures  of  the  world,  but 
only  on  condition  that  its  great  representatives  shall  be 
weighed  rather  than  counted. 

The  comparative — though  only  comparative — pau- 
city of  authors  in  Italy  is  so  far  favourable  to  the  his- 
torian working  on  a  small  scale,  that  it  allows  a  more 
expansive  treatment  of  the  greatest  men,  and  at  the  same 
time  the  inclusion  of  minor  writers  not  always  of  high 
distinction,  but  indispensable  to  the  continuity  of  the 
narrative.  This  is  essential  in  a  book  which  does  not 
profess  to  be  a  string  of  biographies,  but  a  biography  of 
Italian  Literature  herself  regarded  as  a  single  entity 
revealed  through  a  succession  of  personages,  the  less 
gifted  among  whom  may  be  true  embodiments  of  her 
spirit  for  the  time  being.  Many  remarkable  manifesta- 
tions of  the  national  intellect  are,  nevertheless,  neces- 
sarily excluded.  Writers  in  dialect  are  omitted,  unless 
when  acknowledged  classics  like  Meli  or  Belli.  Acad- 
emies and  universities  are  but  slightly  mentioned. 
Theologians,  jurists,  and  men  of  science  have  been 
passed  over,  except  in  so  far  as  they  may  also  have 
been  men  of  letters.  There  is,  in  fact,  no  figure  among 
them  like  Luther,  who,  though  not  inspired  by  the  love 
of  letters  as  such,  so  embodied  the  national  spirit  and 


PREFACE 


IX 


exerted  so  mighty  an  influence  upon  the  language,  that 
he  could  no  more  than  Goethe  be  omitted  from  a  his- 
tory of  German  literature. 

Some  want  of  proportion  may  be  charged  against  the 
comparatively  restricted  space  here  allotted  to  Dante. 
It  is  indeed  true  that  if  genius  prescribed  the  scale  of 
treatment,  at  least  a  third  of  the  book  ought  to  have 
been  devoted  to  him ;  but  this  very  fact  refutes  the 
censure  it  seems  to  support,  since,  the  limits  assigned 
admitting  of  no  extension,  all  other  authors  must  have 
suffered  for  the  sake  of  one.  In  a  history,  moreover, 
rather  dealing  with  Italian  literature  as  a  whole  than 
with  writers  as  individuals,  the  test  is  not  so  much 
greatness  as  influence  upon  letters,  and  in  this  respect 
Dante  is  less  significant  than  Petrarch  and  Boccaccio. 
Preceding  the  Renaissance,  he  could  not  profoundly 
affect  its  leading  representatives,  or  the  succeeding 
generations  whose  taste  was  moulded  b}^  it;  and  al- 
though at  all  times  admired  and  venerated,  it  was  only 
at  the  appearance  of  the  romantic  school  and  the  Revo- 
lution that  he  became  a  potent  literary  force.  Another 
reason  for  a  more  compendious  treatment  of  Dante  is 
that  while  in  the  cases  of  other  Italian  writers  it  is  diffi- 
cult to  remedy  defects  by  reference  to  any  special  mono- 
graph, English  literature  possesses  several  excellent 
handbooks  to  the  Divine  Comedy,  resort  to  which 
would  be  expedient  in  any  case. 

The  books  to  which  the  writer  has  been  chiefly  in- 
indebted  are  enumerated  in  a  special  biography.  He  is 
obliged  to  Mr.  W.  M.  Rossetti  and  to  Messrs.  Ellis  and 
Elvey  for  permission  to  use  the  exquisite  translations 
from  the  Darite  and  his  Circle  of  Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti, 
cited  in  the  early  chapters  of  the  book.     The  graceful 


\ 


X  PREFACE 

versions  from  Boiardo  and  other  poets  contributed  by 
Miss  Ellen  Gierke  have  not,  with  one  exception,  been 
previously  printed.  Where  no  acknowledgment  of  in- 
debtedness  is  made,  translations  are  by  the  author  of 
the  volume. 

RICHARD   GARNETT. 


CONTENTS 


December,  1897. 


CHAPTER  PAGB 

I.    THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  ITALIAN   LITERATURE  .  t  •  I 

II.    THE   EARLY   ITALIAN   LYRIC 12 

III.    DANTE'S   LIFE  AND   MINOR  WRITINGS  .....  24 

IV.    THE   DIVINE  COMEDY .  40 

V.    PETRARCH   AS   MAN   OF   LETTERS  ......  53 

VL    PETRARCH   AND   LAURA 66 

VII.    BOCCACCIO 82 

VIII.    THE   FIFTEENTH   CENTURY 97 

IX.    THE  POETICAL  RENAISSANCE  OF  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY  IIO 

X.    CHIVALRIC   POETRY I26 

XI.    ARIOSTO  AND   HIS    IMITATORS I40 

XII.    MACHIAVELLI    AND   GUICCIARDINI I56 

XIII.  OTHER   PROSE-WRITERS  OF   THE   SIXTEENTH   CENTURY         .  I70 

XIV.  THE   PETRARCHISTS 185 

XV.    HUMOROUS   POETRY— THE   MOCK-HEROIC      .  .  .  .201 

XVI,   THE  NOVEL 212 

XVII.    THE   DRAMA •  .      22$ 

xvin.  TAsso 237 

XIX.    THE  PROSE  OF  THE  SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY       .  .     256 

xi 


MWffjiilll^iaii'iJiitlllll'lBy 


xii  CONTENTS 

PACK 

CHAPTER 

XX.  THE  POETRY  OF  THE  SEVENTEENTH   CENTURY  .  .  .272 

XXI.    THE   EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY 288 

XXII.   THE   COMEDY    OF    MASKS — THE    OPERA — DRAMA     OF     THE 

EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY 3^5 

XXIII.  THE   REVIVAL 327 

XXIV.  THE   REGENERATION 35^ 

XXV.   THE   NINETEENTH  CENTURY— MIDDLE  PERIOD    •          •          •  375 

XXVI.    CONTEMPORARY    ITALIAN   LITERATURE  .  •  •  .        •      394 


I 


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL  NOTE 
INDEX  .        •       .   *  . 


419 

425 


A  HISTORY  OF 


ITALIAN    LITERATURE 


4 


CHAPTER  I 

THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  ITALIAN  LITERATURE 

Great  literatures,  like  great  rivers,  seldom  derive  their 
origin  from  a  single  fountain,  but  rather  ooze  from  the 
soil  in  a  multitude  of  almost  imperceptible  springs.  The 
literature  of  Greece  may  appear  an  exception,  but  we 
know  that  the  broad  stream  of  Homeric  song  in  which 
we  first  behold  it  must  have  been  fed  by  a  number  of 
rills  which  it  has  absorbed  into  itself,  and  whose  original 
sources  lie  beyond  the  range  of  scrutiny.  In  no  litera- 
ture is  this  general  maxim  better  exemplified  than  the 
Italian,  if,  at  least,  as  the  economy  of  this  little  history 
demands,  we  restrict  this  appellation  to  its  modern 
period.  It  might  be  plausibly  contended  that  the  Latin 
and  Italian  literatures,  like  the  Roman  and  Byzantine 
empires,  are,  in  truth,  a  single  entity,  but  the  convenience 
of  the  student  precludes  a  view  in  support  of  which 
much  might  be  adduced  by  the  critic  and  philologist. 
Defining  Italian  literature,  therefore,  so  as  to  comprise 
whatsoever  is  written  in  any  dialect  of  that  "  soft  bastard 


/ 


V 


\ 


it- 


2  ITALIAN   LITERATURE 

Latin  "  which  bears  the  Italian  name,  and  to  exclude  all 
compositions  in  a  language  which  a  Roman  would  have 
called  Latin,  we  find  none  among  great  literatures  whose 
beginnings  are  more  humble  and  obscure,  or,  which  at 
first  seems  surprising,  more  recent.  The  perfection  of 
form  which  the  literature  of  Italy  had  attained  while  all 
others,  save  the  Provencal,  were  yet  devoid  of  symmetry 
and  polish,  the  comparative  intelligibility  of  the  diction 
of  *'  Dante  and  his  circle  *'  at  the  present  day,  while  the 
contemporary  writers  in  other  tongues  require  copious 
glossaries,  lead  to  the  tacit  and  involuntary  assumption 
of  a  long  antecedent  period  of  development  and  refine- 
ment which  did  not  in  fact  exist.  In  truth,  the  earliest 
literary  compositions  definable  as  Italian  are  scarcely 
older  than  the  thirteenth  century. 

There  is,  perhaps,  no  other  such  example  in  history 
of  the  obliteration  of  literary  taste  and  method  as  that 
which  in  Italy  befell  one  of  the  most  gifted  peoples  of 
the  world  for  nearly  six  hundred  years.  After  Boethius 
(about  530A.D.)the  little  that  is  left  of  literature  becomes 
entirely  utilitarian,  and  is,  with  rare  exceptions,  restricted 
to  theology,  jurisprudence,  and  monkish  chronicles. 
There  is  still  much  evidence  that  the  Latin  classical 
writers  had  not  passed  out  of  the  knowledge  of  men  ; 
but— except  when  like  Virgil  they  became  heroes  of 
popular  legend— little  that  they  exercised  any  appreci- 
able influence  upon  men's  ideas  and  imaginations. 
One  unfortunate  precursor  of  the  Renaissance,  indeed, 
Vilgardus  of  Ravenna  (about  A.D.  looo),  was  led  by 
his  admiration  for  the  classics  to  disparage  Christianity, 
and  suffered  death  in  consequence.  As  a  rule,  how- 
ever, the  Latin  poets  merely  served  as  a  magazine 
of  commonplace  quotations  and  an  arsenal  of  mctri- 


'f 


LATIN    LITERATURE   IN   ITALY  3 

cal  rules,  which  some  of  the  least  degenerate  writers 
of  the  period  apply  with  considerable  skill.  The 
explanation  of  this  paralysis  of  Latin  literature  in 
Italy,  while  Greek  was  still  an  efficient  organ  of 
thought  in  the  Eastern  Empire,  is  no  doubt  to  be  found 
in  the  fact  that  it  had  never  been  a  robust  national 
growth.  The  property  of  the  learned  and  cultivated,  it 
had  taken  no  deep  hold  upon  the  mass  of  the  people ; 
and  when  culture  and  learning  perished  amid  the  vicissi- 
tudes of  barbarian  conquest,  it  was  only  preserved,  apart 
from  the  services  of  the  Church,  by  the  absolute  neces- 
sity of  maintaining  some  vestiges  of  law,  physic,  and 
divinity,  and  the  impossibility  of  conveying  instruction 
in  the  debased  dialects  into  which  the  old  Latin  lan- 
guage was  resolving  itself. 

It  might  have  been  expected,  nevertheless,  that  these 
dialects  would  have  become  the  vehicles  of  popular 
legend  and  poetry,  and  that,  as  anciently  in  Greece, 
a  literature  would  at  length  have  been  evolved  from 
the  tales  of  the  story-tellers  and  the  songs  of  the 
minstrels.  The  very  existence  of  vernacular  minstrels 
and  story-tellers  is  but  matter  of  inference,  the  little 
which  we  possess  in  any  sense  referable  to  this  depart- 
ment being  in  Latin.  The  instances  laboriously  accumu- 
lated by  Rubieri  to  prove  the  existence  of  popular 
poetry  throughout  the  Dark  Ages  seem  to  be  all  in 
this  language;  and  centuries  pass  without  any  indica- 
tion that  the  ancestors  of  Dante  thought  it  possible  to 
write  in  any  other,  and  scarcely  any  that  they  cared 
lor  written  composition  at  all,  except  as  a  medium  for 
instruction  in  such  knowledge  as  the  age  possessed,  and 
the  transaction  of  the  ordinary  business  of  life.  The 
symptoms  of  vitality  became  more  evident  after  the 


4  ITALIAN    LITERATURE 

Christian  world  had  turned  the  corner  of  its  first  mil- 
lennium. The  eleventh  century  was  in  Italy  an  age  of 
eminent  theologians  ;  it  also  beheld  the  musical  reforms 
of  Guido  of  Arezzo ;  and  towards  its  conclusion  poets 
of  some  note  arose  to  chant  in  Latin  hexameters  the 
triumphs  of  Genoa  and  Pisa  over  the  Saracens.  Still, 
although,  as  has  been  well  remarked,  the  enthusiasm  for 
the  Crusades  excited  by  itinerant  preachers  goes  far  to 
prove  that  public  addresses  were  delivered  in  the  popular 
dialects,  there  is  not  a  trace  of  any  written  Italian  lan- 
guage, or  a  hint  of  any  such  vernacular  literature  as  ex- 
isted, if  it  hardly  flourished,  among  the  Germans,  the 
French,  and  the  Anglo-Saxons.  When  at  length  in  the 
twelfth  century  Poetry  unmistakably  presents  herself  in 
the  songs  of  the  wandering  students  (Goliardi),  her  attire 
is  still  Latin.  But  it  was  much  that  any  class  of  society 
should  now  be  making  its  own  songs,  and  the  transi- 
tion to  a  vernacular  lyric  was  not  long  or  difficult, 
although,  instead  of  taking  birth  among  the  people,  it 
was  fostered  into  life  by  the  patronage  of  Courts. 

The  first  of  the  Latin  nations  to  acquire  a  cultivated 
vernacular  literature  was  the  Provencal.  Many  reasons, 
singly  insufficient,  but  cumulatively  of  great  force,  may 
be  adduced  for  this  unquestionable  priority.  The  Ian- 
guage,  which  may  be  roughly  but  accurately  described 
as  a  connecting  link  between  French  and  Italian,  as  its 
Catalan  and  Valencian  congeners  form  one  between 
French  and  Spanish,  is  better  adapted  for  poetical  com- 
position  than  French  ;  while,  the  Latin  influence  being 
less  oppressively  overwhelming  than  in  the  land  of  the 
Romans,  it  escaped  the  ban  of  provinciality  which  so 
long  prohibited  serious  literary  composition  in  the  ver- 
nacular  speech  of  Italy.     Before  the  demon  of  religious 


PROVENgAL   LITERATURE  5 

persecution  was  unchained  by  the  Popes,  the  country 
enjoyed  remarkable  prosperity  and  tranquillity;  the 
harsher  features  of  the  feudal  system  were  mitigated 
by  industry  and  commerce,  while  the  aristocratical 
organisation  of  society  ensured  literature  that  patron- 
ao-e  without  which  it  could  hardly  have  flourished  in 
the  absence  of  a  reading  class. 

The  early  poets  of  Provence  were  almost  without 
exception  the  favourites  of  princes  and  noblemen, 
whose  exploits  they  celebrated,  whose  enemies  they 
satirised,  whose  own  political  course  they  sometimes 
inspired,  and  for  whose  gratification  they  vied  with  each 
other  in  improvised  poetical  contests  (tenzons).  Their 
strains,  though  occasionally  lighted  up  by  some  bright 
thought  which  Petrarch  subsequently  did  not  disdain  to 
appropriate,  appear  to  us  in  general  artificial  and  con- 
strained. This  is  partly  owing  to  the  exaggeration  of  a 
virtue,  that  attention  to  "  strictest  laws  of  rhyme  and 
rule,"  in  which,  as  an  English  poet  truly  declares,  the 
bard  finds  "not  bonds, but  wings."  But  the  cultivation 
of  form  is  carried  too  far  when  it  becomes  the  end 
instead  of  the  means,  and  the  Provengal  poets  allowed 
themselves  to  be  seduced  by  their  language's  unequalled 
facilities  for  rhyming  into  an  idolatry  of  the  elaborate, 
which  offered  great  impediments  to  the  simple  ex- 
pression of  feeling.  Some  of  their  strophes  contain  no 
fewer  than  twenty-eight  verses,  the  same  set  of  rhymes 
being  carried  through  the  whole  stanza,  and  very  fre- 
quently through  the  entire  poem.  Out  of  four  hun- 
dred pieces  in  a  single  manuscript  collection  Ginguen6 
found  only  two  in  the  simple  quatrain.  It  was  for- 
tunate for  the  Italians  that  their  language,  fluent  and 
supple  as  it  is,  is  incapable  of  such  feats,  and  that,  while 


../ 


6  ITALIAN    LITERATURE 

adopting^  their  lyrical  measures  from  the  Provencals, 
they  could  not,  had  they  wished,  cramp  themselves  by 
the  reproduction  of  the  latter's  tours  deforce. 

It  is  in  the  last  quarter  of  the  twelfth  century  that  we 
find  Provencal  troubadours  established  at  the  Courts  of 
the  North  Italian  princes,  writing-  exactly  such  poems 
as  they  would  have  written  at  home,  and  apparently  just 
as  well  understood  and  equally  popular,  a  proof  that 
neither  in  Provence  nor  in  Italy  had  the  culture  of 
M/es  lettres  progressed  beyond  the  highest  circles.  One 
or  two  of  them  occasionally  mingled  an  Italian  strophe 
with  their  Provencal  substance,  and  at  a  somewhat  later 
date  Bonvesin  da  Riva  and  others  wrote  in  a  curiously 
mixed  dialect  of  French  and  Italian.  There  is,  however, 
no  proper  Italian  literature  until,  about  1220,  we  sud- 
denly find  a  school  of  vernacular  poetry  flourishing  at 
Palermo  under  the  patronage  of  Frederick  XL,  Emperor 
of  Germany,  an  Italian  on  his  mother's  side,  and  by  his 
tastes  and  sympathies  more  of  an  Italian  than  of  a 
German  prince.  The  character  of  its  productions  is 
in  general  wholly  Provengal,  but  the  language  is  Italian 
of  the  Tuscan  type,  and  it  is  a  highly  interesting  question 
whether  this  was  the  case  from  the  first,  or  whether 
the  pieces  as  we  possess  them  are  adaptations  from  the 
Sicilian  dialect,  which  appears  from  contemporary  prose 
monuments  to  have  existed  at  the  time  nearly  in  its 
present  form.  We  cannot  atfcmpt  to  decide  the  con- 
troversy, which  does  not  affectthe  position  of  the  pieces 
as  the  earliest  undoubted  examples  of  vernacular  Italian 
literature.  Their  poetical  merit  cannot  in  general  be 
rated  very  highly,  and  they  contain  hardly  anything 
which  might  not  have  been  written  in  Provence  as  well 
as  in  Sicily.    Frederick  himself  was  one  of  the  principal 


f  '% 


! 


» 


'I 


II 


SICILIAN   COURT   POETS  7 

writers,  and  his  canzone  on  his  Lady  in  Bondage  might 
appear  to  the  English  reader  to  possess  considerable 
merit,  but  for  the  suspicion  that  the  great  poet  who 
translated  it  infused  more  poetical  inspiration  than  he 
found.  It  would  gain  considerably  in  significance  if 
Rossetti  could  be  proved  right  in  conjecturing  that  the 
immured  lady  is  a  symbol  of  Frederick's  empire  in 
captivity  to  the  Pope : 

"  *  Each  morn  I  hear  his  voice  bid  them 
That  watch  me,  to  be  faithful  spies 
Lest  I  go  forth  and  see  the  skies  ; 
Each  night  to  each  he  saith  the  same  ; — 

And  in  7ny  soul  and  in  mine  eyes 
There  is  a  burning  heat  like  flame  J* 

Thus  grieves  she  now  ;  but  she  shall  wear 
This  love  of  mine  whereof  I  spoke 
About  her  body  for  a  cloak. 

And  for  a  garland  in  her  hair. 
Even  yet ;  because  I  mean  to  prove, 

Not  to  speak  only,  this  my  love." 

— ROSSETTI. 

Of  the  few  really  Sicilian  poets  whose  verses  remain, 
the  most  remarkable  is  Cielo  dal  Carno,  more  commonly 
known  from  the  misreading  of  an  ill-written  text  as 
Ciiillo  cTAlcarno.  The  mention  of  Saladin  has  till  re- 
cently caused  his  Dialogue  between  Lover  and  Lady  to 
be  ascribed  to  the  close  of  the  twelfth  century,  but  more 
unequivocal  indications  prove  that  it  cannot  have  been 
written  before  1241.  It  is  a  piece  of  rare  merit  in  its 
way,  exempt  from  the  insipid  gallantry  of  the  typical 
troubadour  or  minnesinger,  and  full  of  humour  at  once 
robust  and  sly  at  the  expense  of  slippery  suitors  and 
complacent  damsels.    Nothing  can  be  more  delightfully 


f 


8 


ITALIAN   LITERATURE 


naive,  for  instance,  than  the  knight's  unsolicited  con- 
fession that  he  has  stolen  his  Bible : 

"  Then,  on  Christ's  book,  borne  with  me  still 
To  read  from  and  to  pray 
{J  took  it,  fairest,  in  a  church. 
The  priest  being  gone  away).'" 

— ROSSETTI. 

Some  of  the  nearly  contemporary  Tuscan  poets  may 
have  belonged  to  Frederick's  circle,  but  it  will  be  con- 
venient to  treat  of  them  in  the  next  chapter  among 
the  precursors  of  Dante.  Of  the  undoubted  Sicilian 
poets  the  most  remarkable  is  Jacopo,  the  notary  of 
Lentino,  depreciated  by  Dante  on  account  of  the  rus- 
ticity of  his  style,  a  defect  which  disappears  when  he 
is  rendered  into  another  language.  Rossetti,  speaking 
from  Lentino's  mask,  frequently  thrills  with  strokes  of 
true  magic,  as  when  he  names 

**  the  song. 
Sweet,  sweet  and  long,  the  song  the  sirens  know^ 

In  some  of  Lentino's  sonnets  also  the  germs  and 
groundwork  of  Dante's  lyrical  poetry  are  manifestly  to 
be  discovered. 

Something  should  be  said  here  of  the  lyrical  forms 
used  by  the  Italian  poets  of  the  best  ages.  The  prin- 
cipal are  the  canzone,  the  sonnet,  and  the  ballata.  The 
canzone  admits  of  several  varieties  of  structure,  but 
usually  commences  with  three  unrhymed  lines  of  eleven 
syllables  each,  followed  by  three  similar  lines  rhyming  to 
their  predecessors,  a  seventh  of  a  discretionary  number 
of  syllables  rhyming  to  the  third  and  sixth,  and  five  or 
six  lines  on  a  different  rhyming  system,  short  or  long  at 
the  poet's  discretion,  yet  generally  having  the  last  rhyme 


I 
'   f 


\    k 


ITALIAN   METRICAL   FORMS  9 

of  the  preceding  system  once  repeated.     The  following 
stanza  from  Guido  Cavalcanti  may  serve  as  an  example : 

"  But  when  I  looked  on  death  made  visible. 

From  7ny  heart's  sojourn  brought  before  mine  eyes. 

And  holding  in  her^  hand  my  grievous  sin, 
I  seemed  to  see  my  countenance,  that  fell. 

Shake  like  a  shadow :  my  heart  tittered  cries. 

And  jny  soul  wept  the  curse  that  lay  therein. 

Then  Death  :  *  Thus  much  thine  urgent  prayer  shall  win  : — 
I  grant  thee  the  brief  interval  of  youth 

At  natural  pity  s  strong  soliciting' 

And  I  {because  I  knew  that  moment's  ruth 

But  left  my  life  to  groan  for  a  frail  space) 

Fell  in  the  dust  upon  my  weeping  face.'* 

— Rossetti. 

By  this  highly  intelligent  system  the  vagrant  over- 
growth of  the  Provencal  stanza  was  pruned,  and  a  lyrical 
form  constituted,  which  was  unsurpassed  for  the  com- 
bination of  dignity  with  melodious  grace.  The  sonnet, 
unmatched  as  the  most  appropriate  form  for  the  har- 
monious development  of  a  single  thought,  is  one  of 
Italy's  most  precious  gifts  to  the  world  of  letters.  It 
is  too  thoroughly  naturalised  in  this  country  to  need 
detailed  description;  but  the  caution  is  not  super- 
fluous that  a  Shakespearian  sonnet,  a  sonnet  on  the 
French  model,  or  a  very  irregular  sonnet,  are  strictly 
speaking  not  sonnets,  but  quatorzains;  and  that,  although 
it  would  be  pedantic  to  insist  upon  unvarying  con- 
formity to  one  of  the  four  legitimate  Italian  structures 
of  the  sestet,  they  will  seldom  be  widely  departed  from 
without  injury  to  the  music  and  architecture  of  the 
poem.  The  name  sonnetto — a  little  sound — (cf.  sonnettc) 
admirably  expresses  the  pealing  effect  of  a  well-mani- 

*  Death  (Z«  Alorte)  being  feminine  in  Italian. 


8 


ITALIAN   LITERATURE 


i1 


naive,  for  instance,  than  the  knight's  unsolicited  con- 
fession that  he  has  stolen  his  Bible : 

"  Then,  on  Chrisfs  book,  borne  with  me  still 
To  read  from  and  to  pray 
{I  took  it /fairest,  in  a  church. 
The  priest  being  gone  away)." 

— ROSSETTI. 

Some  of  the  nearly  contemporary  Tuscan  poets  may 
have  belonged  to  Frederick's  circle,  but  it  will  be  con- 
venient to  treat  of  them  in  the  next  chapter  among 
the  precursors  of  Dante.  Of  the  undoubted  Sicilian 
poets  the  most  remarkable  is  Jacopo,  the  notary  of 
Lentino,  depreciated  by  Dante  on  account  of  the  rus- 
ticity of  his  style,  a  defect  which  disappears  when  he 
is  rendered  into  another  language.  Rossetti,  speaking 
from  Lentino's  mask,  frequently  thrills  with  strokes  of 
true  magic,  as  when  he  names 

"  the  song. 
Sweet,  sweet  and  long,  the  song  the  sirens  know.''* 

In  some  of  Lentino's  sonnets  also  the  germs  and 
groundwork  of  Dante's  lyrical  poetry  are  manifestly  to 
be  discovered. 

Something  should  be  said  here  of  the  lyrical  forms 
used  by  the  Italian  poets  of  the  best  ages.  The  prin- 
cipal are  the  canzone,  the  sonnet,  and  the  ballata.  The 
canzone  admits  of  several  varieties  of  structure,  but 
usually  commences  with  three  unrhymed  lines  of  eleven 
syllables  each,  followed  by  three  similar  lines  rhyming  to 
their  predecessors,  a  seventh  of  a  discretionary  number 
of  syllables  rhyming  to  the  third  and  sixth,  and  five  or 
six  lines  on  a  different  rhyming  system,  short  or  long  at 
the  poet's  discretion,  yet  generally  having  the  last  rhyme 


t 


( 


ITALIAN    METRICAL   FORMS  9 

of  the  preceding  system  once  repeated.     The  following 
stanza  from  Guido  Cavalcanti  may  serve  as  an  example : 

"  But  when  I  looked  on  death  tnade  visible. 

From  my  heart  s  sojourn  brought  before  mine  eyes, 

And  holding  in  her^  hand  my  grievous  sin, 
I  seemed  to  see  my  countenance,  that  fell, 

Shake  like  a  shadow :  my  heart  uttered  cries. 

And  my  soul  wept  the  curse  that  lay  therein. 

Then  Death  :  *  Thus  much  thine  urgent  prayer  shall  win  : — 
I  grant  thee  the  brief  interval  of  youth 

At  natural  pity  s  strong  soliciting.' 

And  I  {because  I  knew  that  momenfs  ruth 

But  left  my  life  to  groan  for  a  frail  space) 

Fell  in  the  dust  upon  my  weeping  face." 

— Rossetti. 

By  this  highly  intelligent  system  the  vagrant  over- 
growth of  the  Provengal  stanza  was  pruned,  and  a  lyrical 
form  constituted,  which  was  unsurpassed  for  the  com- 
bination of  dignity  with  melodious  grace.  The  sonnet, 
unmatched  as  the  most  appropriate  form  for  the  har- 
monious development  of  a  single  thought,  is  one  of 
Italy's  most  precious  gifts  to  the  world  of  letters.  It 
is  too  thoroughly  naturalised  in  this  country  to  need 
detailed  description;  but  the  caution  is  not  super- 
fluous that  a  Shakespearian  sonnet,  a  sonnet  on  the 
French  model,  or  a  very  irregular  sonnet,  are  strictly 
speaking  not  sonnets,  but  quatorzains;  and  that,  although 
it  would  be  pedantic  to  insist  upon  unvarying  con- 
formity to  one  of  the  four  legitimate  Italian  structures 
of  the  sestet,  they  will  seldom  be  widely  departed  from 
without  injury  to  the  music  and  architecture  of  the 
poem.  The  name  sonnetto — a  little  sound — (cf.  sonnette) 
admirably  expresses  the  pealing  effect  of  a  well-mani- 

*  Death  {La  Morte)  being  feminine  in  Italian. 


to 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE 


7 


pulated  sestet.  The  ballata  is  less  confined  by  strict 
rules.  **  It  is  properly  a  lyric  of  two  or  more  stanzas, 
in  the  first  of  which  is  set  out  the  theme  to  be  amplified 
in  the  following"  (Boswell).  It  often  terminates  with 
an  invoj  or  quasi  summing-up,  as  is  frequently  the  case 
with  the  canzone  also.  The  octave,  familiar  to  English 
readers  as  the  metre  of  Bon  Juan,  was  generally  re- 
served for  narrative  poetry,  but  was  also  converted  by 
the  Sicilian  poets  into  a  lyrical  form  by  merging  the 
final  couplet  in  the  preceding  sestet,  as  described  and 
exemplified  by  an  English  imitator: 

••  To  thee,  fair  Isle,  Italia  s  satellite, 

Italian  harps  their  native  measures  lend : 
Yet,  wooing  sweet  diversity,  not  quite 

Thy  octaves  with  Italia  s  octave  blend. 
Six  streaming  lines  amass  the  arrouy  might 
hi  hers,  one  cataract  couplet  doth  expend. 
Thine  lakewise  widens,  level  in  the  light. 
And  like  to  its  beginning  is  its  end.'' 

The  sestinc,  a  favourite  form  with  the  Provencals,  and 
frequently  used  by  Dante  and  Petrarch,  is  too  compli- 
cated to  be  well  understood  without  an  example. 

The  same  phenomenon  is  observed  in  Italian  literature 
as  in  English — the  decay,  after  the  language  had  begun 
to  receive  a  high  scholastic  cultivation,  of  the  simple 
spontaneous  melody  which  had  originally  characterised 
it.  Italian  prose  probably  never  possessed  the  majestic 
rhythm  and  sonorous  cadences  which  came  unsought  to 
English  poets  of  the  time  of  Elizabeth  and  James;  but 
Italian  verse  had  its  Campions,  and  these,  like  ours,  left 
no  successors.  Without  disparaging  the  tunefulness  of 
late  writers  like  Chiabrera,  it  must  still  be  owned  that 
this  is  in  a  measure  artificial,  and  that  the  cause  is  the 


EARLY   ITALIAN  PROSE 


II 


I 


divorce  of  poetry  and  music.  "  It  seems,"  says  Panizzi, 
"  that  the  art  of  writing  lines  in  which  so  much  simplicity, 
smoothness,  and  strength  were  united  to  so  delicate  a 
proportion  of  sounds,  is  lost ;  and  the  reason  is  that  in 
our  days  canzoni  and  sonnets  have  nothing  but  the  name 
of  a  song."  The  most  melodious  modern  poetry,  ac- 
cordingly, is  the  portion  of  Metastasio's  plays  which  was 
actually  written  to  be  sung. 

It  is  too  early  to  speak  as  yet  of  Italian  prose,  of  which 
no  important  example  will  be  found  until  we  reach 
Dante's  Vita  Niiova,  near  the  end  of  the  thirteenth  cen- 
tury. It  need  only  be  remarked  that  the  grace  of  diction 
and  the  intricacy  of  metrical  form  which  Italian  poets 
had  attained  by  the  middle  of  the  thirteenth  century, 
show  that  the  language  was  already  capable  of  fine 
prose,  and  that  it  was  only  needful  to  dispel  the  super- 
stition that  serious  subjects  must  be  treated  in  a  learned 
tongue.  Poetry  prospered  in  the  vernacular  for  the 
obvious  reasons  that  the  bards  were  in  general  ignorant 
of  Latin,  and  that  if  they  had  been  acquainted  with 
it  their  accomplishment  would  have  been  wasted  upon 
the  lords  and  ladies  for  whom  they  principally  wrote. 
The  historical  or  philosophical  writer,  however,  best 
reached  the  classes  he  addressed  through  the  medium 
of  Latin.  Hence,  though  for  different  reasons,  we 
observe  in  early  Italian  literature  the  same  pheno- 
menon as  in  early  Greek— a  brilliant  poetical  activity 
in  the  almost  total  absence  of  prose  composition.  Yet, 
when  Tuscan  prose  fairly  begins,  its  productions  are 
the  purest  examples  of  diction— to//  di  lingua.  This  ele- 
ment testifies  at  once  to  the  innate  refinement  of  the 
people  and  to  the  continuous  operation  of  intellectual 
influences  latent  in  the  obscurest  deeps  of  the  Dark  Ages. 


CHAPTER    II 


THE  EARLY  ITALIAN  LYRIC 


It  was  inevitable  that  the  light  thus  kindled  at  the 
Sicilian  Court  should  spread  to  other  parts  of  Italy,  those 
especially  where  the  vernacular  tongue  had  already 
obtained  the  greatest  degree  of  refinement,  and  had 
developed  most  aptitude  for  the  purposes  of  literature. 

Dante,  examining  the  dialects  of  Italy  about  the  he- 
ginning  of  the  fourteenth  century,  affirms,  indeed,  that 
none  of  them  can  be  identified  as  the  ideal  or  pattern 
language,  which  is  the  common  property  of  educated 
Italians  everywhere.  But  he  evidently  regards  Tuscany 
and  Bologna  as  greatly  in  advance  of  other  parts  of 
Italy;  and  speaks  of  the  impediments  offered  by  the 
local  speech  of  Ferrara,  Modena,  and  Keggio  to  the 
acquisition  of  pure  Italian,  in  consequence  of  which,  he 
says,  these  cities  have  produced  no  poets.  Evidently, 
therefore,  some  districts  of  Italy  were  more  congenial 
than  others  to  the  Court  poetry  transplanted  from  Sicily; 
and  we  find  it  flourishing  exactly  where,  on  Dante's 
principles,  this  might  have  been  expected,  that  is,  in 
Tuscany  and  the  Komagna.  About  the  same  time, 
Antonio  da  Tempo,  a  Paduan,  writing  on  vernacular 
poetry,  admits  that  "Lingua  Tusca  magis  apta  est  ad 
hteram  sive  literaturam  quam  aliae  lingua,  et  ideo  magis 
est  communis  ct  intelligibilis."    Almost  the  same  words 


la 


tARLY  TUSCAN  POETRY 


U 


are  employed  by  an  anonymous  contemporary  trans- 
lator of  the  excerpts  from  the  gospels  read  as  lessons 
tor  the  day,  with  the  addition  that  the  Tuscan  speech  is 
also  the  most  agreeable.  It  is  no  wonder,  therefore,  that 
many  of  the  so-called  Sicilian  poets  should  have  been 
Tuscans,  or  that  Tuscans  at  home  should  have  been  the 
first  and  chief  cultivators  of  Italian  poetry,  so  soon  as 
this  began  to  be  written  elsewhere  than  in  Sicily,  where 
the  destruction  of  the  Hohenstaufen  dynasty  put  an  end 
to  it  shortly  after  the  middle  of  the  thirteenth  century. 
The  transfer  of  literary  composition  from  a  Court  circle 
to  a  republican  community  was  of  high  importance  as  a 
substitution  of  freer  influences  for  those  by  which  it  had 
hitherto  been  moulded,  and  we  speedily  see  the  new  litera- 
ture ceasing  to  be  a  mere  amusement,  and  becoming  in 
some  measure  an  organ  of  thought  and  opinion.  Politi- 
cal poems,  satires,  didactic  pieces,  moral  exhortations  in 
verse  become  frequent.  The  literary  worth  of  these, 
indeed,  is  not  in  general  comparable  to  that  of  the 
amorous  strains  which  had  formerly  monopolised  the 
field  of  poetry,  but  they  show  that  literature  was  begin- 
ning to  lay  hold  of  the  national  life,  and  bear  within 
them  the  germs  of  better  things. 

The  most  remarkable  representative  of  the  new  tend- 
ency, w^ho  had  previously  been  a  leading  representative 
of  the  old,  the  most  influential  and  the  most  conspicuous 
figure,  indeed,  among  Dante's  forerunners,  though  far 
from  the  best  poet,  was  Guittone  di  Arezzo,  born 
probably  about  1235.  In  his  youth  Guittone  had  been 
a  love  poet,  after  the  manner  of  the  troubadours,  and 
obtained  sufficient  distinction  in  the  sonnet— to  which, 
indeed,  he  seems  to  have  first  given  what  was  to  prove 
its  durable  form --to   be   afterwards  regarded   as   the 


1    '''  ?  / 


14 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE 


GUIDO  GUINICELLI 


IS 


( 


precursor  of  Petrarch  ;   but  towards  middle  age,  under 
the   influence  of   reHgious   emotion,  he  renounced  the 
world,  including  his  wife  and  family,  and  entered  the 
military,  not  monastic,  order  of  the  Cavalieri  di  Santa 
Maria,   known,   from    the   free-and-easy  deportment   of 
some    of    the    brethren,    as    the     Jolly    Friars,     Frati 
Gaudenti.     Guittone,  however,  seems  to  have  been  per- 
fectly  serious    in    the    step   he   took.      He   condemned 
his  former  course  of  life,  renounced  poetical  pursuits 
and    dispensed   prescriptions   against   secular   lore  and 
poetry  in  all  their  branches.     He  continued,  neverthe- 
less,  to   write    in   verse,    and   employed   the    Provencal 
metrical  forms  as  of  old ;  but  the  themes  of  his  muse 
are  now  morality,   religion,  and,   occasionally,   politics. 
His  sentiments  entitle  him  to  respect,  but  his  verse  is 
dreary  :  Rossetti  has  been  able  to  find  only  one  piece 
of  his  to  repay  translation,  and  this,  even  in  Rossetti's 
hands,  does  not  repay  it.     He  was,  nevertheless,  much 
admired    in    his    own    day,   and    many    contemporary 
poets  were  much  influenced  by  him,  especially  by  his 
Latinisms;  for  Guittone  was  acquainted  with  such  of  the 
classical  writers  as  were  then  accessible,  and  imitated 
their  constructions  witli  servility  and  without  judgment. 
He  has  a  claim  to  priority  as  one  of  the  first  writers  of 
Italian  prose,  on  the  strength  of  his  epistles.     They  are 
otherwise  only  remarkable  for  the  Latinised  affectation 
of  their  style.^ 

A  much  more  important  writer,  in  a- purely  literary 

^  The  other  prose  Italian  writings  of  approximate  date  are  for  the  most  part 
either  translations  from  the  Latin,  which  do  not  enter  into  the  plan  of  this 
work,  or  novelettes,  which  will  be  more  advantageously  considered  along 
with  other  works  of  their  class.  The  origin  of  Italian  prose  would  have  to 
be  carried  considerably  farther  mck  if  the  Carte  di  Arhorea  in  the  public 
library  of  Cagliari  were  genuine,  but  they  arc  unquestionably  forgeries. 


point  of  view,  and  the  first  Italian  who  can  be  esteemed 
a  poet  of  high  merit,  is  GuiDO  Guinicelli  of  Bologna 
( 1 220-1 276),  of  whom  little  is  known,  except  that,  like 
most  men  of  light  and  leading  in  those  unquiet  times,  he 
was  banished  from  his  native  city.  His  rank  in  Italian 
poetry  is  prominent,  he  gave  it  a  more  serious  and 
philosophical  character  than  the  troubadours  had  been 
capable  of  imparting,  and  his  amorous  sentiment  is 
more  spirited  and  impressive.  The  masterpiece  among 
Dante's  sonnets — Tanto  gentil  e  tanto  onesta  pare — is 
undoubtedly  adumbrated  in  one  of  Guinicelli's.  Dante 
calls  him  "the  Sage,"  and  the  canzone  of  the  Gentle 
Heart,  to  which  the  great  Florentine  is  alluding,  justi- 
fies his  admiration.  The  following  is  the  first  of  six 
beautiful  stanzas  : 

"  Within  the  gentle  heart  Love  shelters  him^ 
As  birds  within  the  green  shade  of  the  groi.>e. 
Before  the  gentle  hearty  in  Natures  scheme^ 
Love  was  not,  or  the  gentle  heart  ere  Love, 
For  with  the  sun,  at  once. 
So  sprang  the  light  immediately,  nor  was 

Its  birth  before  the  sun^s. 
And  Love  hath  his  effect  in  gentleness 

Of  very  self;  even  as 
Within  the  middle  fire  the  heafs  excess." 

—Rossetti. 

Much  might  be  said  of  many  other  precursors  of 
Dante,  but  space  admonishes  us  to  restrict  ourselves  to 
two — Guido  delle  Colonne,  a  Sicilian,  chiefly  known  for 
his  Latin  romance  on  the  Fall  of  Troy,  but  also  a  ver- 
nacular lyrist  of  considerable  merit ;  and  Rustico  di 
Filippo  ( 1 200-1 274),  eulogised  by  Brunetto  Latini  as  a 
man  of  great  worth,  but  whose  place  among  poets  is 
mainly  that  of  a  satirist.     Very  biting  are  his  lines  on  a 


lO 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE 


GUIDO  CAVALCANTI 


17 


certain  Messer  Ugolino,  a  member  by  anticipation  of 
what  Carlyle  called  ''the  Heaven  and  Hell  Amalgama- 
tion Society,"  "who  has  good  thoughts,  no  doubt,  if 
they  would  stay,"  and 

"  Wotild  love  his  party  with  a  dear  accord 
If  only  he  could  ojice  quite  care  for  it^^ 

One  other  writer  among  Dante's  predecessors  may  be 
mentioned,  not  for  his  claims  as  a  poet,  but  as  a  man  so 
illustrious  that  he  honoured  poetry  even  by  attempting 
what  he  was  unqualified  to  perform.  He  is  no  less  a 
man  than  St.  Francis  of  Assisi,  whose  Song  of  the 
Creatures  is  pronounced  by  Kenan  "the  most  perfect 
expression  given  by  the  modern  world  of  its  feeling 
for  religion." 

Some  way  past  the  middle  of  the  century  (1265)  the 
greatest  poet  of  ^Italy  was  born,  and  ere  his  eyes  were 
closed  Italian  literature,  in  virtue  of  his  works  alone,  had 
taken  place  among  the  great  literatures  of  the  world. 
The  distance  between  Dante  and  his  immediate  contem- 
poraries is  much  wider  than  usual  in  the  case  of  similar 
groups  of  intellectual  and  gifted  men,  even  if,  leaving 
Dante's  great  poem  and  his  prose  works  out  of  sight,  we 
consider  him  simply  as  a  lyrist.  Yet  they  do  constitute 
a  group  around  him,  and  evince  a  general  development 
both  in  thought  and  command  of  language,  testify- 
ing 10  the  upheaval  which  made  a  Dante  possible. 
Many  might  be  noticed  did  space  permit,  but  it  will  be 
necessary  to  restrict  ourselves  to  two  typical  instances, 
with  an  additional  section  on  the  cultivators  of  humo- 
rous and  satirical  poetry,  whose  writings  perhaps  afford 
surer  testimony  than  those  of  more  ambitious  bards  that 
poetry  had  actually  entered  into  the  life  of  the  people. 


The  two  men  who,  but  for  the  existence  of  Dante,  would 
have  stood  forth  as  the  poetical  representatives  of  their 
age,  are  Guido  Cavalcanti  and  Cino  da  Pistoia.  By  the 
time  of  their  appearance,  about  1290,  Italian  literature 
had  become  for  the  time  entirely  concentrated  in  Tus- 
cany, and  the  phenomena  which  had  attended  the  similar 
isolation  of  Greek  literary  talent  in  Attica  were  destined 
to  reproduce  themselves. 

Guido  Cavalcanti  would  be  memorable  if  only  for 
his  youthful  friendship  with  Dante,  celebrated  in  many 
poems  of  both,  and  more  especially  in  the  sonnet,  so 
well  known  in  England  from  Shelley's  more  poetical  than 
accurate  version,  in  which  Dante  wishes  for  his  company, 
along  with  Lapo  Gianni  and  their  respective  ladies,  on 
a  voyage  with  him  and  his  Beatrice.  Vanna,  Cavalcanti's 
lady-love  in  those  days,  is  mentioned  in  another  sonnet 
as  the  chosen  companion  of  Beatrice  : 

"  Each 
Beside  the  other  seemed  a  thing  divineP 

Cavalcanti  had  the  reputation  of  a  free-thinker,  and 
the  charge  seems  hardly  refuted. by  his  having  made  a 
pilgrimage  to  Compostella,  even  if  he  ever  arrived  there, 
which  may  be  questioned.  It  is  supposed  to  have  been 
on  this  journey  that  he  made  the  acquaintance  of  the 
pretty  Mandetta  of  Toulouse,  the  theme  of  much  of  his 
verse.  He  was  a  leading  personage  in  the  Florentine 
republic,  and  his  strifes  with  inimical  factions  eventually 
led  to  his  exile  to  Sarzana,  where  he  contracted  a  disease 
which  carried  him  off  after  his  return  to  his  native  city. 

Guido's  merits  as  a  poet  were  highly  estimated  by  his 
contemporaries.  Dante  mentions  him  in  his  treatise 
De  Vulgari  Eloquio  among  the  masters  of  Italian  litera- 


I8 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE 


tiire,  and  declares  that  he  has  ecHpsed  Guido  Guinicelli, 
whom  also   he   qreatly  admired.      Benevento  da  Imola, 
the    commentator     on    the   Divine   Coviedy^   names   him 
aloni,^  with  Dante  as  one  of  the  two  great  lights  of  the 
age.     That  these  praises  were  not  undeserved  will  appear 
from  a  comparison  of  his  lyrics  with  Dante's,  remember- 
ing that  he  was  tlie  older  man  and  that  the  obligation  was 
entirely  on  the  side  of  the  younger.     Dante,  especially  in 
his  sonnets,  is   continually  borrowing   thoughts  which, 
whether  original  with  CavalciJiti  or  not,  had  been  pre- 
viously  expressed   by   him.     The   expression  is  indeed 
greatly  improved,   but  even   Cavalcanti's   comparatively 
rude  form  is  full  of  charm.     In  his  ballate  he  has  the 
great   merit  of  having   exalted   a   popular  carol  to  the 
dignity  of  literature  with  little  injury  to  its  simplicity.    Of 
the  canzoni  ascribed  to  him  only  two  are  recognised  as 
undoubtedly  genuine.     Both  are  instinct  with  the  philo- 
sophical spirit  which    he    imported    into    poetry.      The 
objections  to  the  genumeness  of  the  others  derived  from 
external  evidence  do  not  always  appear  very  conclusive  ; 
but  it  must  be  admitted  that  there   is  an  almost  entire 
lack   of   external   testimony   in    their   favour.     Four   of 
them,  from  one  of  which  we  have  already  borrowed  a 
quotation,  have  been  translated  by  Rossetti.     The  most 
celebrated  of  Guido's  genuine  compositions,  the  canzone 
beginning  "  Donna  vii  prcga ;  percJi  w  voglio  dire;'  was 
considered  by  his  contemporaries  the  ne  phis  ultra  of 
poetry,  but  rather  for  its  erudition  than  its  strictly  poetical 
merits  :  it  had  eight  separate  commentaries,  which  indeed 
were  by  no  means  superfluous. 

Guittoncino  de'  Sinibuldi,  commonly  called  CiNO  DA 
PiSTOlA,  a  poet  of  somewhat  later  date  (1270-1336),  pos- 
sessed less  originality  than  Guido  Cavalcanti,  but  having 


CINO  DA  PISTOIA 


19 


a  better  standard  of  taste,  is  perhaps  more  generally 
pleasing.  Like  Cavalcanti,  he  was  a  man  of  varied 
accomplishments,  and  it  is  his  special  renown  to  have 
been  among  the  first  jurists  of  his  time.  Like  Dante,  he 
was  exiled  from  his  native  city,  and  went  to  Paris ;  he 
subsequently  professed  law  in  several  of  the  chief  cities 
of  Italy,  and  was  eventually  restored  to  his  own.  His 
verse,  like  Cavalcanti's,  bears  a  strong  affinity  to  Dante's 
lyrical  poetry,  and,  in  the  opinion  of  so  accomplished  a 
judge  as  Lorenzo  de'  Medici,  is  even  more  completely 
divested  of  primitive  rudeness.  His  most  celebrated 
composition  is  the  canzone  consoling  Dante  for  the  loss 
of  Beatrice,  from  which  we  quote  a  stanza  in  Rossetti's 
version  : 

"  Why  now  do  pangs  of  torment  clutch  thy  hearty 
Which  with  thy  love  should  jnake  thee  overjoyed^ 
As  him  whose  intellect  has  passed  the  skies  f 
Behold^  the  spirits  of  thy  life  depart 

Daily  to  Heaven  with  her^  they  so  are  buoyed 
With  thy  desire^  and  Love  so  bids  them  rise. 
O  God!  atid  thou^  a  man  whom  God  made  wise^ 
To  nurse  a  charge  of  care,  and  love  the  same  ! 

I  tell  thee  in  his  name 
From  sin  of  sighing  grief  to  hold  thy  breathy 

Nor  let  thy  heart  to  deaths 
Nor  harbour  death^s  resemblaftce  in  thine  eyes, 
God  hath  her  with  Himself  eternally, 
Yet  she  inhabits  every  hour  with  thee,^^ 

Here,  and  in  the  remainder  of  the  poem,  there  is  a 
clear  prefiguration  of  Petrarch,  who  admired  Cino,  and 
wrote  a  sonnet  on  his  death.  The  following  is  a  favour- 
able example  of  Cino's  own  sonnets  : 

"  Descend,  fair  Pity,  veiled  in  mortal  weedj 
And  in  thy  guise  my  messengers  be  dight^ 
Partakers  to  appear  of  virtuous  might 
That  Heaven  hath  for  thy  attribute  decreed 


20  ITALIAN  LITERATURE 

Yetthou^  ere  on  their  errand  these  proceed^ 
If  Love  consent,  I  pray  ^  recall  and  cite 
My  spirits  all  astray  dispersed  in  flighty 

That  so  my  songs  be  bold  to  sue  and  plead. 

Then,  hast  thou  sight  of  ladies'  loveliness^ 
Thither  accede,  for  I  would  have  thee  therCy 
And  audience  icith  humility  entreat; 

And  charge  my  envovs,  kneeling  at  their  feet ^ 
Their  Lord  and  his  desirings  to  declare  : 
Hear  them,  sweet  Ladies,  for  their  humbleness^ 

Several  other  good  poets,  such  as  Lapo  Gianni,  Dino 
Frescobaldi,  and  Gianni  Alfani,  would  deserve  notice  in 
a  more  elaborate  history.  They  all  wrought  in  the 
spirit  of  Cavalcanti  and  Dante  himself,  spiritualising  the 
earthly  passion  of  the  troubadours,  and  endowing  the 
ladies  of  their  songs  with  such  superhuman  perfections 
as  to  incur  the  risk  of  appearing  mere  types  of  ideal 
virtue.  We  must,  however,  pass  to  a  different  order  of 
poetry,  the  gay  and  satirical.  Here  Folgore  di  San  Gemi- 
niano  is  the  leading  figure.  His  political  sonnets  are  very 
forcible;  but  he  is  better  known  for  two  sets  of  sonnets 
on  the  pleasures  of  the  months  and  the  days  of  the  week, 
celebrating,  not  without  an  undercurrent  of  satire,  the 
luxurious  extravagance  of  a  set  of  wild  young  men  at 
Siena,  wlio,  another  poet  informs  us,  reduced  themselves 
to  beggary  thereby.  Another  humorous  poet,  justly 
defined  by  Rossetti  as  the  scamp  of  the  Dante  circle,  is 
Cecco  Angioleri,  who  is  irreverent  enough  to  call  Dante 
himself  a  pinchbeck  florin,  and  whose  favourite  theme 
is  his  quarrels  with  his  parents  : 

"  ^[y  mother  don't  do  much  because  she  can't. 
But  I  nuiy  count  it  just  as  good  as  done. 
Knowing  the  way  and  not  the  wilts  her  want. 
To-day  I  tried  a  kiss  with  her— just  one — 


BRUNETTO  LATINI 


21 


To  see  if  I  could  make  her  sulks  avaunt; 
She  said,  *  The  devil  rip  you  up,  my  son  / ' " 

— Rossetti.' 

Another  class  of  poetry,  forming  a  connecting  link 
with  prose,  should  be  briefly  mentioned,  the  didactic. 
The  Tcsorettooi  Brunetto  Latini  (1210-1294),  celebrated 
as  an  encyclopaedist  of  the  knowledge  of  his  time,  and 
still  more  so  as  the  preceptor  or  rather  Mentor  of  Dante, 
describes  a  vision  in  which  the  poet  supposes  the  secrets 
of  nature  to  be  revealed  to  him,  and  is  interesting  as  in 
some  measure  prefiguring  the  machinery  of  the  Divina 
Commedia,  Francesco  Barberino,  a  notary,  wrote  both 
in  prose  and  verse  on  the  bringing-up  of  girls,  and 
although  he  is  an  indifferent  writer  his  work  is  valuable 
as  a  picture  of  manners.  He  seriously  discusses  the 
question  whether  girls  should  be  taught  to  read,  and 
decides  it  in  the  negative.  An  anonymous  poem  entitled 
La  Intelligenzia,  treating  philosophically  of  the  emanation 
of  Divine  Wisdom,  a  conception  resembling  chat  of  the 
Logos,  attains  a  higher  grade  of  poetical  merit,  but  the 
best  passages  appear  to  be  translated  from  the  French 
and  Provencal.  The  religious  lyric  of  St.  FYancis  of  Assisi 
and  of  the  Umbrian  school,  more  interesting  in  a  psycho- 
logical than  in  a  literary  point  of  view,  culminated  about 
the  end  of  the  thirteenth  century  in  the  lays  of  Jacopino 
di  Todi,  remarkable  examples  of  impassioned  mysticism, 
and  sometimes  of  satiric  force.  He  is  particularly  inter- 
esting as  a  popular  poet  who  owes  nothing  to  culture, 
but  derives  all  his  inspiration  from  the  ecstatic  devotion 


\ 


i  t 


'  * '  Gin  my  seven  sons  were  seven  rats, 
Rin7iing  ovtr  the  caslle  lucC^ 
And  I  myseV  "were  the  anhi ^rey  cat. 
Full  soon  would  I  worry  them  a'  !  " 

— Old  Ballad. 


22 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE 


I 


which  in  his  day  animated  a  large  portion  of  the  Itahan 
common  people.  The  same  spirit  inspired  the  Rappre- 
scntazioni  of  a  rather  later  period,  which  will  be  more 
appropriately  considered  along  with  the  Italian  drama. 

Dante's  prose  works  demand  separate  treatment  ;  of 
earlier  examples  of  prose  there  is  very  little  to  be  said. 
Historians  and  theologians  continued  to  compose  in 
Latin,  and  the  few  writings  in  the  vernacular  were 
chiefly  translations  from  that  language.  The  principal 
contemporary  book  in  Italian,  the  Tesoro  or  great  ency- 
clopaidia  of  Brunetto  Latini,  is  an  important  monument 
of  culture,  but  not  of  literature.  It  was,  moreover, 
originally  composed  in  French. 

Italian  literature  had  sprung  up  from  notliingness  and 

made    enormous   progress   during   three-quarters   of    a 

century  without  having  produced  a  poet  of  the  first  or 

even  of  the  second  rank.    There  was  no  want  of  singers  ; 

rather  there   seemed   reason   for   apprehension   lest,  as 

Tansillo  declared  with  truth  in  the  Cinque  Cento, 

"  The  Musci  troop  an  army  had  become, 
And  every  hillock  a  Parnassus  grown" — 

a  complaint  anticipated  by  the  anonymous  writer  of  a 
clever  ballata  in  the  thirteenth  century  : 

"  A  little  wild  bird  sometimes  at  my  ear 

Sin^s  his  own  verses  very  clear : 
Others  sing  louder  what  I  do  not  hear. 
For  singing  loudly  is  not  singing  well ; 

But  ever  by  the  song  that^s  soft  and  low 
The  master- singer's  I'oice  is  plain  to  tell. 

Few  have  ity  and y.t  all  are  masters  now. 
And  each  of  than  can  trill  out  what  he  calls 
His  ballads,  canzonets,  and  madrigals. 
The  world  7uith  masters  is  so  covered  der. 
There  is  no  room  for  pupils  any  more.^^ 

— ROSSETTI. 


APPEARANCE  OF  DANTE 


23 


But  the  great  poet  was  about  to  arise  who  may  almost 
be  said  to  have  created  two  literatures— his  country's 
and  that  specially  devoted  to  himself— and  whose  own 
works  are  such,  that  if  every  other  production  of  Italian 
literature  were  to  perish,  it  would,  on  their  account 
alone,  continue  to  deserve  a  place  among  the  great  litera- 
tures of  the  world. 


I 


\ 


HtuMiUyaMHhii 


-^-"■^■'-^-'il 


CHAPTER   III 

DANTE'S  LIFE  AND  MINOR  WRITINGS 

Creditable  as  were  their  essays  in  the  new  literary 
instrument  of  thought,  Dante's  predecessors  can  be 
regarded  as  his  forerunners  only  in  so  far  as  they  had 
helped  to  create  an  intellectual  atmosphere  congenial 
to  the  special  bent  of  his  genius.  The  general  character 
of  this  may  be  defined  as  an  alliance  of  the  chivalrous 
and  impassioned  sentiment  which  had  come  down  from 
ihe  troubadours  with  the  science  of  Aristotle  and  the 
thought  of  Aquinas.  Guido  Cavalcanti  had  shown  how 
these  might  be  combined,  and  Dante  followed  in  his 
steps  without,  perhaps,  any  clear  consciousness  of  his 
own  infinite  superiority ;  of  which,  however,  a  well- 
known  passage  in  the  Inferno  seems  to  intimate  that  he 
eventually  came  to  entertain  a  sufficient  notion. 

Dante  (Durante)  Alighieri  was  born  at  Florence  in 
1265,  in  the  later  part  of  May.  The  origin  of  his  family 
is  variously  attributed  to  Rome,  Ferrara,  Parma,  and 
Verona.  The  first  of  his  ancestors  whom  he  mentions, 
Cacciaguida  degli  Elisei,  a  crusader  in  1147,  had  be- 
stowed his  wife's  surname  of  Alighieri  upon  his  son, 
and  it  had  continued  in  the  family.  Dante's  relatives 
belonged  to  the  Guelf  party,  and  had  had  their  share 
in  the  turmoils  which  for  half  a  centurv  had  distracted 
Florence  no  less  than  most  other  Italian  cities.     Of  his 


i 


24 


DANTE  AND  BEATRICE 


25 


boyhood  we  know  nothing,  except  that  he  lost  his  mother 
at  an  early  age,  and  that  he  profited  by  the  instructions 
of  the  most  learned  of  the  P'lorentines,  Brunetto  Latini. 
He  appears  to  have  taken  part  in  several  military  expe- 
ditions in  his  youth,  and  the  glimpses  of  his  personal 
circumstances  which  he  allows  us  in  the  Vita  Nuova 
exhibit  him  as  a  man  of  means,  mingling  on  equal  terms 
with  the  wealthy  and  polished  society  of  prosperous 
Florence. 

If  our  knowledge  of  Dante's  outer  life  at  this  period 
of  his  history  is  imperfect,  it  is  otherwise  with  his 
spiritual  life,  which  he  has  revealed  as  no  other  could, 
in  the  above-mentioned  Vita  Nuova^  written  probably 
about  1292.  This  alone  would  have  immortalised  him 
as  the  author  of  the  earliest  modern  book  of  its  class — 
though  it  had  a  prototype  in  the  Confessions  of  Saint 
Augustine — and  of  the  first  book  of  genius,  or  indeed  of 
any  real  importance,  written  in  Italian  prose.  Nothing 
can  more  forcibly  proclaim  the  superiority  of  Dante's 
mind  than  the  uniqueness  of  his  first  production,  unless 
it  be  the  fact  that,  high  as  is  its  place  in  literature,  its 
chief  interest  for  us  is  its  concern  with  the  man.  It  is 
simply  the  record  of  his  attachment  to  a  young  lady 
whom  he  calls  Beatrice,  and  whom  Boccaccio  enables 
us  to  identify  with  one  whom  we  know  from  other 
sources  to  have  actually  existed,  Beatrice  de'  Portinari. 
The  notion  that  Beatrice  is  but  an  abstraction  is  utterly 
refuted,  to  adduce  no  other  testimony,  by  Cino's  con- 
solatory poem  on  her  death,  quoted  in  the  preceding 
chapter,  and  can  only  be  entertained  by  those  who  know 
little  of  love,  or  are  entirely  possessed  by  the  passion  for 
allegorising.  If  ever  intense  affection  was  conveyed  in 
intense  language  it  is  here,  while  at  the  same  time  the 


26 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE 


passion  is  purely  Platonic,  and  there  is  no  proof  that  it 
was  in  any  degree  shared  by  its  object,  who  appears  to 
have  been  already  married. 

Dante's  biographers,  except  the  late  and  untrustw^orthy 
Filelfo,  cast  no  doubt  on  the  real  existence  of  Beatrice, 
and  it  would  require  very  strong  evidence  to  overthrow 
the  testimony  of  the  chief  among  them,  Boccaccio,  who 
lived  near  Dante's  age,  whose  veneration  for  him  was 
boundless,  and  who  was  personally  acquainted  with  his 
daughter.     We   can    perceive   no   adequate   reason   for 
the    scepticism    of    Scartazzini    and    others    respecting 
Boccaccio's   trustworthiness.      It    is   true   that   the   use 
which  he  made  of  his  opportunities  falls  sadly  below 
the  modern  standard.     Not  only  is  he  careless  in  col- 
lecting   and    verifying    authorities,    but    he    makes    no 
attempt  to  think  himself  back   into  the   period  of   his 
hero.    "  Between  him  and  the  enthusiasms  of  the  Middle 
Ages,"  says  Symonds,  ^^a   ninefold  Styx  already  rolled 
its  waves."     Yet  his  faults  are  offences,  of  defect,  not  of 
excess  in  statement,  though  he  sins  by  introducing  many 
useless  disquisitions.     His  work  exists  in  two  shapes,  a 
longer    and    a    shorter    recension.      The    latter   is    un- 
doubtedly  an   unauthorised  abridgment  of  the  former, 
and  the  novel  statements   which  it  occasionally  intro- 
duces can  claim  no  authority  from  Boccaccio.     It  seems 
to  have  been  made  by  some  Florentine  who  was  offended 
by  the  severity  of  Boccaccio's  strictures  upon  his  city  for 
her  ingratitude  to  Dante. 

The  biography  by  Filippo  Villani,  one  of  his  Lives  of 
Illustrious  Florentines,  written  about  1400,  is  mainly  taken 
from  Boccaccio,  but  is  important  for  its  vindication  of 
Dante  from  the  charge  of  profligacy,  and  for  its  par- 
ticular details  of  his  last  illness.      The  valuable  life  by 


DANTE'S  BIOGRAPHERS 


2; 


Leonardo  Bruni  (1369-1414)  is  avowedly  designed  as  a 
I  supplement  to  Boccaccio,  who  in  Bruni's  opinion  had 
neglected  weighty  matters  for  love  stories  and  such-like 
frivolities.  He  therefore,  while  omitting  all  mention 
of  Beatrice  and  the  Vita  Nuova,  gives  a  much  fuller 
account  than  Boccaccio  of  Dante's  share  in  the  affairs 
of  Florence,  and  even  cites  an  autograph  letter  of  his, 
now  lost  like  all  others.  He  is  entitled  to  much 
respect  as  a  sensible  and  impartial  writer,  who  took 
pains  to  obtain  information  ;  while  the  later  mediaeval 
biographers,  Manetti  and  Filelfo,  have  some  literary 
merit,  but  no  historical  value.  Of  the  other  three  it 
may  be  said  that  a  statement  in  which  any  two  of  them 
agree  may  usually  be  received,  and  that  the  assertion  of 
any  one  is  entitled  to  a  fair  amount  of  credit  when  it 
is  not  contradicted  by  another's.  The  absolute  trust- 
worthiness of  the  chronicle  long  attributed  to  Dinoi 
Campagni  must  now  be  given  up  ;  it  is,  nevertheless, 
most  probably  of  sufficient  antiquity  to  have  preserved 
some  authentic  notices. 

No  biographer  of  Dante,  however,  could  possibly  have 
compared  with  Dante  himself,  and  it  is  much  to  be 
lamented  that  the  entire  disappearance  of  what  must 
have  been  for  his  time  an  extensive  body  of  corre- 
spondence has  deprived  us  of  all  autobiographic  record 
except  the  Vita  Nuova,  which,  almost  devoid  of  incident, 
paints  the  inner  man  with  lively  force.  Except  Shelley's 
Epipsychidion,  the  world  has  nothing  to  set  beside  this 
dithyrambic  of  purely  Platonic  passion.  We  must  recur 
to  it,  and  need  only  here  fix  the  death  of  Beatrice,  one 
of  the  great  landmarks  of  Dante's  life,  at  June  9,  1290. 
Somewhat  more  than  a  year  afterwards  we  find  Dante 
moved,  as  a  noble  soul  might  well  be,  not  by  the  attrac- 


ifc»JBami.!i]ilriaiJwaiiK<wtaaHt«i«^j  :_i.iiMife.'j.«-..  ^■y.g .. « 


28 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE 


DANTE'S  EXILE 


29 


tions  but  by  the  spiritual  sympathy  of  a  compassionate 
lady.  It  is  impossible  to  entertain  the  least  doubt  of  the 
reality  of  an  episode  described  by  himself  with  such 
tenderness  of  self-excuse  and  poignancy  of  self-reproach, 
but  to  admit  it  is  to  admit  the  actuality  of  all  the  rest  of 
the  Vitii  Nuova : 

"  The  salt  stream  tiiat  did  sorrowfully  flow  ^ 

Speeded,  yr  Eyes^  from  your  deep  springs  apace, 

Ga7'e  marvel  unto  all  who  such  long  space 
Beheld  you  weepings  as  yourselves  do  know. 
Now  fear  I  that  all  such  ye  would  forgo, 

Jf  I  upon  my  own  part  would  be  base, 

And  not  all  shift  and  subterfuge  displace^ 
Reminding  you  of  her  who  made  your  woe. 
Your  levity  lays  load  of  heavy  thought 

Upon  nu\  sore  disquieted  with  dread 

Of  her  who  looks  on  you  in  wistful  wise. 
By  nothing  less  than  Death  should  you  be  wrought 

E'er  to  forget  your  Lady  who  is  dead; 

Thus  saith  my  hearty  and  afterward  it  sighs. ^^ 

Dante  appears  to  say  that  he  entirely  overcame  this 
rather  regrettable  than  reprehensible  lapse  from  his  ideal, 
and  we  believe  him.  If  so,  the  pitiful  lady  cannot  be 
identified  with  Gemma  Donati,  whom,  at  latest  in  1293, 
if  she  had  really  borne  him  seven  children  by  1300,  he 
married  by  the  persuasion  of  his  friends.  The  Vita 
Nuova  was  in  all  probability  written  by  this  time,  and 
from  its  conclusion  we  learn  that  Dante  was  even  then 
preparing  to  celebrate  Beatrice  in  the  Divina  Comvicdia, 
It  is  therefore  exceedingly  improbable  that  he  would 
have  wedded  one  at  all  likely  to  impair  or  efface  the 
freshness  of  her  image  in  his  soul ;  and  though  his  union 
with  Gemma  was  apparently  untroubled  by  discord,  it 
probably  lacked  all  consecration  but  the  ceremonial.     It 


was  brought  to  a  close  by  Dante's  exile  from  his  native 
city  in  1301.  Gemma  and  the  children  did  not  accom- 
pany him,  and  he  never  saw  them  more.  The  reason  is 
not  difficult  to  discover  :  it  prefigured  the  case  of  Milton. 
Gemma's  family,  the  Donati,  had  come  to  belong  to  a 
party  opposed  to  Dante.  The  interests  of  her  numerous 
children,  mostly  of  very  tender  age,  undoubtedly  coun- 
selled Gemma  to  cleave  to  the  winning  side,  and  she  can 
scarcely  be  blamed  if  she  declined  to  forsake  her  blood 
relations  for  a  husband  whom  she  had  probably  found 
unsympathetic.  Whether  Dante  approved  her  course,  or 
rejoiced  in  his  liberty  (Short-sighted  Devil,  not  to  take 
his  spouse  !),  or  was  simply  choked  by  indignation,  he 
never  honours  or  dishonours  her  by  a  single  word. 
Gemma  Donati's  portrait  hangs  in  the  gallery  of  poets' 
wives,  like  Marshal  Marmont's  in  the  gallery  of  French 
marshals,  covered  by  a  veil  of  crape. 

Few  of  the  more  distinguished  Italian  men  of  letters 
have  been  able  to  keep  themselves  clear  of  public  em- 
ployment. Dante's  wealth  and  social  eminence  in  the 
days  of  his  prosperity  did  not  allow  him  to  decline  the 
invidious  office  of  Prior,  to  which  he  was  raised  in  1300. 
It  was  only  tenable  for  two  months,  but  this  was  long 
enough  for  his  ruin.  Florence  was  then  rent  by  dis- 
sensions between  two  factions,  the  Whites  and  Blacks. 
The  Government,  by  Dante's  courageous  and  probably 
wise  advice,  resolved  to  banish  the  leaders  of  both.  As 
the  chiefs  of  the  Guelfic  Blacks  were  Dante's  own  con- 
nections, the  Donati,  while  the  Ghibelline  Whites  in- 
cluded Guido  Cavalcanti,  his  most  intimate  friend,  his 
counsel  must  have  been  patriotic  and  disinterested. 
Unfortunately,  it  was  not  unflinchingly  carried  out, 
some  of  the  Whites  being   shortly  afterwards  allowed 


'III 
■ 


30 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE 


DEATH  OF  DANTE 


31 


to  return.  Pope  Boniface  VI I L,  fearing  that  the  Ghibel- 
line  or  Imperialist  party  would  thus  obtain  the  upper 
hand  in  the  city,  incited  Charles  de  Valois,  brother  of 
the  French  King,  Philip  the  Fair,  whom  he  had  allured 
into  Italy  to  attack  the  King  of  Naples,  to  make  himself 
master  of  Florence.  This  he  accomplished,  and  the  con- 
sequent return  of  Dante's  adversaries  led  to  the  sacking 
of  his  house,  the  ruin  of  his  fortune,  and  his  life-long 
exile  from  his  native  city.  He  was  at  the  time  absent 
on  an  embassy  at  the  Papal  Court,  from  which  he  retired 
to  Arezzo,  where  the  other  exiles  had  assembled,  and 
must  henceforth  be  reckoned  among  the  Ghibellines. 

For  some  years  Dante  participated  in  their  endeavours 
to  reinstate  themselves  by  force  ;  but  eventually,  well- 
nigh  as  disgusted  with  his  friends  as  with  his  enemies, 
scorning  the  ignominious  terms  on  which  alone  return 
would  liave  been  permitted,  and  especially  discouraged 
by  the  failure  of  the  Emperor  Henry  VIL,  whose  advent 
to  Italy  he  had  welcomed  with  enthusiasm,  he  became 
a  wanderer  among  tlie  courts  of  the  princes  and  nobles 
of  Northern  Italy,  generally  iinding  honour  and  protec- 
tion, which  he  frequently  repaid  by  diplomatic  services. 
There  seems  no  doubt  of  his  having  visited  Paris  and 
studied  in  the  University.  The  alleged  extension  of  his 
journey  to  Oxford  is  unsupported  by  convincing  evi- 
dence, but  is  not  impossible  or  improbable.  A  writer 
near  liis  own  day  seems  to  assert  that  he  had  been  in 
England.  During  all  this  time,  like  his  ancient  proto- 
type Thucydides,  he  was  devoting  himself  to  his  immortal 
w^ork,  which,  published  as  the  respective  parts  were  com- 
pleted, brought  him  celebrity  and  wondering  reverence 
even  in  his  lifetime.  His  most  distinguished  patron  in 
his   later    years   was   Cane   della   Scala,   surnamed    the 


I'll 
'ill 


Great,  Lord  of  Verona,  from  whose  court  he  retired  in 
1320  to  that  of  Guido  Novello  da  Polenta,  at  Ravenna. 
In  the  following  year  he  undertook  a  mission  to  Venice, 
and  there  contracted  a  fever,  which,  aggravated  it  is  said 
by  the  inhospitality  of  the  Venetians  in  compelling  him 
to  return  by  land,  carried  him  off  on  September  14, 
1321,  shortly  after  he  had  completed  his  great  epic.  His 
funeral  obsequies  were  celebrated  with  magnificence; 
but  political  troubles  delayed  for  a  hundred  and  sixty 
years  the  erection  of  the  monument  ultimately  raised 
by  the  piety  of  Cardinal  Bembo's  father,  then  govern- 
ing Ravenna  for  the  Venetians,  and  inscribed  with  six 
rhyming  Latin  verses  attributed  without  adequate  evi- 
dence to  Dante's  own  pen,  but  sufficiently  ancient  to 
have  been  expanded  by  Boccaccio  into  a  noble  sonnet : 

"  Dante  am  /,  of  deepest  lore  in  song 

Hierophant,  elected  to  combine 

Inheritance  in  Art  with  Natures  sign. 
Accounted  miracle  all  num  among. 
Wings  of  Imagination  sure  and  strong 

Bore  me  through  worlds  infernal  and  divine^ 

And  gave  to  verse  immortal  to  consign 
What  doth  to  Earth  or  doth  to  Heaven  belong. 
Bright  Florence  brought  me  forth,  but  her  fond  son 

To  bitter  exile  drove,  step-mother  made 

By  guile  of  tongues  malevolent  and  base. 
Ravenna  sheltered  me;  in  her  is  laid 

My  dust;  my  spirit  thitherward  has  gone 

Where  Wisdom  reigns,  and  Envy  hath  not  place} 

It  is  usual  to  commence  a  review  of  an  author's  pro- 
ductions by  his  most  important  work;  but  the  Divina 
Comvicdia  requires  a  chapter  to  itself,  and  precedence 
must  consequently  be  given  to  Dante's  minor  writings. 
Of  these  the  Vita  Nuova  stands  first  both  in  time  and 


L%,. 


» 


32 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE 


THE  VITA  NUOVA 


33 


in  importance.  It  is  epoch-making  in  many  ways,  as 
the  first  great  example  of  ItaHan  prose,  the  first  revela- 
tion of  the  genius  of  the  greatest  mediaeval  poet,  and 
the  incarnation  of  that  romantic  conception  of  ideal 
love  by  which  the  Middle  Age  might  fairly  claim  to  have 
augmented  the  heritage  bequeathed  by  antiquity.  The 
main  note  of  Dante's  genius  here  is  its  exquisite  and 
unearthly  spirituality,  which,  indeed,  is  visible  in  much 
of  the  poetry  and  art  of  the  time,  but  attains  its  most 
intense  expression  in  him.  Something  like  it  has  occa- 
sionally been  seen  since,  as  in  John  Henry  Newman  ; 
but  it  is  in  our  day  too  much  out  of  keeping  with 
the  legitimate  demands  of  a  busy  and  complicated 
society  to  occur  except  as  a  temporary  and  individual 
phenomenon. 

Nothing  is  more  remarkable  in  a  composition  ap- 
parently so  fanciful  than  the  entire  sincerity  and  straight- 
forwardness of  the  Vila  Nuova :  grant  that  Beatrice 
was  a  real  person,  and  it  is  impossible  to  doubt  the 
literal  truth  of  the  entire  narrative.  This  is  the  more 
extraordinary  in  consideration  of  the  impersonality  alike 
of  the  enamoured  poet  and  of  the  object  of  his  passion. 
Dante,  indeed,  speaking  throughout  in  his  own  char- 
acter, cannot  help  portraying  himself  in  some  measure, 
though  our  conception  of  him  is  probably  largely  made 
up  of  involuntary  associations  with  the  more  palpable 
Dante  of  the  Diviiui  Coniniedia,  But  Beatrice  remains 
what  he  meant  her  to  be,  a  spiritual  presence,  visible  but 
intangible.  No  heroine  of  fiction  conveys  a  stronger 
impression  of  perfection;  but  we  see  her  as  Andio- 
meda  saw  Medusa,  merely  reflected  in  the  mind  of 
her  lover. 

More  extraordinary  works  than  the   Vita  Nuova  have 


been  composed  at  even  an  earlier  age,  but  there  is 
perhaps  no  other  book  in  the  world  in  which  a  young 
man  appears  as  asserting  by  his  first  attempt  so  un- 
challenged a  superiority  over  predecessors  and  con- 
temporaries, with  whom  he  has  nevertheless  much  in 
common.  The  evolution  of  Italian  poetry  has  up  to 
this  point  proceeded  gradually  and  systematically ;  all 
of  a  sudden  it  makes  a  bound,  and  seems  as  it  were  to 
have  sprung  across  a  chasm.  The  prose  is  of  more 
equable  desert  than  the  interspersed  poetry,  some  of 
which  is  inferior ;  while,  on  the  other  hand,  the  best 
poetry  far  transcends  the  prose.  The  finest  among  the 
sonnets  and  canzoni,  if  sometimes  rivalled,  have  not 
hitherto  been  surpassed  in  Italian  literature,  while  the 
most  famous  of  the  former  still  stands  at  the  head  of 
its  own  class  : 

"  .5*^  goo:Uy  and  so  seemly  doth  appear 

My  Lady,  when  she  doth  a  grecii7ig  brings 

That  loui^ue  is  stayed,  silent  and  qieiverifigy] 
And  eye  adventures  not  to  look  on  her. 
She  thence  departeth,  of  her  laud  aware^ 

Meek  i?i  humility  s  apparelling; 

A  nd  men  esteem  her  as  a  heavenly  thing 
Sent  down  to  earth  a  mar^jel  to  declare. 
Whoso  regardeth,  so  delightedly 

Beholds,  his  eyes  into  his  heart  instil 

Sweet  only  to  be  known  by  tastijjg  itj 
And  from  her  face  invisibly  doth  flit 

A  gentle  spirit  Love  doth  wholly  fill. 

That  to  the  soul  is  ever  saying,  Sigh.^^ 

The  length  of  Italian  canzoni  renders  it  extremely 
dif^cult  to  do  them  justice  in  a  work  of  necessarily 
contracted  limits.  Two  stanzas,  however,  of  Dante's 
canzone  on  the  death  of  his  lady  are,  as  it  were,  a  little 


34 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE 


THE  CONVITO 


35 


poem    complete   in   themselves,   and   may   be  cited    in 
Rossetti's  matchless  version  : 

**  /  WHS  a' think  big  how  life  fails  with  us 
Suddenly  after  such  a  little  while; 
When  Love  sobbed  in  my  hearty  which  is  his  home. 
Whereby  my  spirit  waxed  so  dolorous 
That  in  myself  I  said^  with  sick  recoil : 
*  Yeay  to  7ny  Lady  too  this  Death  must  corned 
And  therewithal  such  a  bewilderment 
Possessed  nu\  that  I  shut  mine  eyes  for  peace  ; 
And  in  my  brain  did  cease 
Order  of  thought,  and  every  healthful  thing. 
Afterwards,  wandering 

Amid  a  swarm  of  doubts  that  came  and  went, 
Some  certain  women^s  faces  hurried  by^ 
And  shrieked  to  me,  'Thou  too  shall  die,  shall  die/* 

Then  saw  I  many  broken,  hinted  sights 

In  the  uncertain  state  I  stepped  into. 

Meseemed  to  be  I  know  not  in  what  place, 

Where  ladies  through  the  streets,  like  ?nournful  lights^ 

Ran  with  loose  hair,  and  eyes  that  frightened  you 

By  their  own  terror,  aud  a  pale  amaze  : 

The  while,  little  by  little,  as  I  thought. 

The  sun  ceased,  and  the  stars  began  to  gather, 

A?td each  wept  at  the  other; 

And  birds  dropped  in  711  id  flight  out  of  the  sky. 

And  earth  shook  suddenly. 

And  I  was  ^ware  of  one,  hoarse  and  tired  out. 

Who  asked  of  me,  *  Hast  thou  not  heard  it  said? 

Thy  lady,  she  that  was  so  fair,  is  dead' " 

Although  the  Vita  Nuova  is  essentially  true  history,  the 
same  cannot  be  said  of  a  later  work  preferred  to  it  by 
the  author  himself,  albeit  posterity  has  reversed  his 
judgment.  This  is  the  Convito,  or  Banquet,  in  which 
Beatrice  appears  as  an  allegory  of  divine  philosophy. 
The  process  of  this  miftation  is  not  difficult  to  discover. 


Ill, 


Not  long  after  her  death,  Dante,  as  he  tells  us  at  the 
end  of  the  Vita  Nuova,  had  resolved,  under  the  influence 
of  a  wondrous  vision,  ^^  di  dire  di  lei  quello  che  mai  non 
fu  detto  d'alctma."  The  mortal  maiden  thus  necessarily 
becomes  a  type  of  supernatural  glory  and  perfection,  as 
we  see  her  in  the  Divina  Coimnedia,  and  the  meta- 
morphosis inevitably  extends  to  the  lyrics  in  which 
Dante  celebrates  her.  She  is  no  longer  Beatrice  de' 
Portinari,  but  Philosophy,  and  unfortunately  in  too  many 
instances  Dante's  poetry  has  become  philosophy  also. 
The  nobility  of  the  form  still  assures  it  pre-eminence  over 
all  contemporary  verse  but  the  author's  own  ;  but  the 
substance  is  often  mere  reasoning  in  rhyme.  Two  can- 
zoni,  however,  are  of  distinguished  beauty,  "  Voi  eh'  in- 
tendendo  il  te^'zo  ciel  inovete  "  (translated  by  Shelley),  and 
'^  Tre  donne  intorno  at  cor  mi  son  venule^'  which  Coleridge 
says,  in  1819,  he  is  at  length  beginning  to  understand 
after  reading  it  over  twelve  times  annually  for  the  last 
fourteen  years.  *'  Such  a  fascination  had  it  in  spite  of 
its  obscurity  ! '' 

The  former  of  these  pieces  is  shown  by  internal  evi- 
dence to  have  been  written  as  early  as  1295,  and  the  latter 
was  composed  after  Dante's  banishment,  to  which  period 
most  of  the  other  canzoni  and  the  prose  commentary 
probably  belong.  This  commentary  constitutes  the  sub- 
stance of  the  work.  It  was  intended  to  have  expounded 
fourteen  canzoni,  but  treats  only  of  three,  apart  from 
a  general  introduction.  More  remarkable,  perhaps,  than 
the  philosophical  subtleties  of  which  it  consists,  is  Dante's 
appeal  to  a  new  public.  He  writes  no  longer  for  literary 
circles,  but  for  the  world  of  persons  of  worth  wherever 
found,  especially  persons  of  rank.  Hence  the  treatise 
is  necessarily  composed  in  Italian,  which  has  the  good 


\ 


i 


36 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE 


effect  of  drawing  from  Dante  a  spirited  vindication  of 
his  native  tongue.  It  was  probably  completed  up  to 
the  point  where  the  author  left  it  by  1308  or  1309. 
The  exceedingly  corrupt  text  has  been  revised  by  the 
List  editor,  Dr.  Moore,  upon  the  authority  of  two 
manuscripts  in  England. 

The  literary  merits  of  the  Italian  language  are  more 
fully  expounded  in  another  work  of  Dante's,  which, 
however,  he  composed  in  Latin,  that  his  arguments 
midit  reach  those  who  would  not  have  condescended  to 
read  the  vernacular.  The  Be  Vti/gan  Eloquioj  originally 
entitled  De  Eloquenda  Vulgari,  or  Of  the  Vulgar  Tongue^ 
is  shown  by  historical  allusions  to  have  been  composed 
by  1304.  Like  the  Convito  it  is  unfmished,  only  two 
books  of  the  four  of  wliich  it  w^as  to  have  consisted 
having  been  written.  Dante's  conception  of  the  capa- 
bilities of  his  native  tongue  does  him  honour,  even 
though  he  restricts  the  number  of  subjects  adapted  to 
it,  and  would  deny  its  use  to  all  but  gifted  writers.  It 
is  a  still  higher  honour  to  have  recommended  it  more 
effectually  by  his  example  than  by  his  reasonings,  which, 
as  was  inevitable  in  his  age,  frequently  rest  upon  entirely 
fanciful  and  visionary  data.  His  account,  nevertheless, 
of  the  Italian  dialects  as  they  existed  in  his  day,  and  his 
precepts  on  the  metrical  structure  of  Italian  poetry, 
whijh  he  seems  not  to  have  then  contemplated  as 
capable  of  existing  apart  from  music,  retain  a  substantial 
value  for  all  time. 

The  hopes  founded  upon  the  appearance  of  the 
Emperor  in  Italy  in  1311  probably  induced  Dante  to 
publish  a  work  written  some  years  previously,  his 
treatise  De  JMonarchia,  embodying  the  best  mediaeval 
conception   of   the   spheres    of    temporal   and   spiritual 


DANTE'S  '  DE  MONARCHIA 


» 


37 


government  upon  earth.  So  powerfully  had  the  uni- 
versality of  Roman  sway  impressed  men's  minds,  that 
the  Roman  people  w^ere  believed  to  have  obtained  the 
empire  of  the  earth  by  the  donation  of  Heaven,  and 
the  Emperor  of  Germany  was  regarded  as  their  lawful 
representative.  This  belief,  so  strange  to  us,  was,  never- 
theless, salutary  in  its  time,  by  repressing  the  cham- 
pions of  universal  despotism  who  made  the  Pope 
the  fountain  of  secular  as  w^ell  as  spiritual  authority. 
By  numerous  arguments  satisfactory  to  himself,  but 
which  would  now  be  considered  entirely  irrelevant, 
Dante  proves  that  universal  monarchy  is  a  portion  of 
the  Providential  scheme,  that  the  Romans  possessed 
by  divine  appointment  jurisdiction  over  the  entire  earth. 
The  inheritance  of  this  prerogative  by  the  Emperor  of 
Germany  is  taken  for  granted,  and  it  is  next  demon- 
strated that  the  Emperor  does  not  derive  his  authority 
from  the  Church,  any  more  than  the  Church  hers  from 
the  Emperor.  Yet  Caesar  is  to  be  reverent  to  Peter,  as 
the  first-born  son  to  his  father.  There  is  no  trace  of 
religious  heterodoxy  in  the  treatise,  though  nothing  can 
be  more  uncompromising  than  its  limitation  of  the  Papal 
authority  to  its  legitimate  sphere. 

The  amount  of  fugitive  poetry  ascribed  to  Dante  is 
inconsiderable.  Bruni,  in  his  biography,  remarks  that 
there  are  two  classes  of  poets — those  who  sing  by  in- 
spiration and  those  who  compose  by  art — and  that  Dante 
belongs  to  the  second.  It  cannot  be  admitted  that 
Dante  was  devoid  of  inspiration,  but  it  is  certainly  true 
that  he  was  one  of  those  who  possess  a  special  power  of 
regulating  this  divine  gift.  A  Shelley  or  a  Coleridge 
must  write  when  the  unpulse  seizes  him  ;  but  a  Milton, 
with  the  conception  of  Paradise  Lost  in  his  mind   can 

4 


38 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE 


defer  piittli\i^  pen  to  paper  for  seventeen  years,  and,  with 
consummate  lyric  power,  is  but  unfrequently  visited  by 
the  lyric  impulse.  Dante,  so  marvellously  similar  to 
Milton  in  many  respects,  also,  if  we  may  trust  his 
account  of  the  genesis  of  the  pieces  in  the  Vita  Niwva^ 
but  seldom  found  himself  under  an  irresistible  impulse 
to  lyrical  composition.  Something  suggests  to  him  that 
a  sonnet  or  a  canzone  would  be  expedient  or  decorous; 
he  plots  it  out,  and  fills  up  the  outline  with  unerring 
fidelity  to  his  first  conception.  The  gigantic  plan  of  the 
Divine  Comedy  is  similarly  carried  out  without  inter- 
ruption  or  misgiving  ;  and  but  for  the  death  of  Beatrice, 
it  is  by  no  means  certain  that  it  would  have  existed,  any 
more  than  that  Milton  would  have  written  Comus  if  the 
noble  children  had  never  been  lost  in  the  wood. 

A  poet  of  this  stamp  was  not  likely  to  enrich  litera- 
ture witli  much  fugitive  verse.  A  few  occasional  poems 
glitter  here  and  there,  to  employ  Wordsworth's  simile, 
Hke  myrtle  leaves  in  his  chaplet  of  bay.  The  most 
remarkable  among  them  is  a  sestine,  the  finest  example 
of  its  artihcial  and  elaborate  class,  and  superbly  trans- 
lated by  Kossetti;  this  and  other  pieces  are  supposed 
to  refer  to  a  certain  Pietra,  otherwise  unknown.  These 
poems  seem  to  breathe  the  language  of  genuine  passion, 
but  are  too  few  and  of  too  uncertain  date  to  con- 
tribute much  to  the  solution  of  the  question  whether 
Dante  was,  as  Boccaccio  asserts,  remarkable  for  sus- 
ceptibility to  female  charms,  or  a  paragon  of  conti- 
nence, as  Villani  will  liave  him.  It  is  at  least  certain 
that,  after  Beatrice,  no  woman  exercised  any  note- 
worthy influence  upon  his  writings.  He  moves  through 
life  a  great,  lonely  figure,  estranged  from  human  fellow- 
ship at  every  point ;  a  citizen  of  eternity,  misplaced  and 


CHARACTER  OF  DANTE 


39 


ill-starred  in  time  ;  too  great  to  mingle  with  his  age,  or, 
by  consequence,  to  be  of  much  practical  service  to  it ; 
too  embittered  and  austere  to  manifest  in  action  the 
ineffable  tenderness  which  may  be  clearly  read  in  his 
writings  ;  one  whose  friends  and  whose  thoughts  are 
in  the  other  world,  while  he  is  yet  more  keenly  alive 
than  any  other  man  to  the  realities  of  this ;  one  whose 
greatness  impressed  the  world  from  the  first,  and  whom 
it  does  not  yet  fully  know,  after  the  study  of  six  hundred 
years. 


CHAPTER    IV 


.THE   DIVINE   COMEDY 

To  have  assumed  a  position  so  far  in  advance  of,  and  so 
decisively  discriminated  from,  that  of  any  of  his  con- 
temporaries, as  in  the  Vita  NinK.r^  would  alone  have 
ensured  Dante  immortality  as  a  poet.  But  his  lyrical 
works  are  to  his  epic  as  Shakespeare's  sonnets  to  Shake- 

speare's  dramas. 

Any  narrative  in  verse  not  familiar  or  humorous,  nor 
of  extreme  brevity,  may  be  entitled  an  epic;  although  we 
mii^ht  do  well  to  naturalise,  as  we  have  done  in  the  case 
of  '^V/j'//,  the  pretty  Greek  word  r/j//  to  denote  a  nar- 
rative  composition   of   such  compass  as   Keats's  Ere  of 
St.  Ai^nes  or  Wordsworth's  Laodamia,      But  there   are 
at   least   three   classes   of   epics,   excluding   the   merely 
romantic  like    the    Orlando,   and  the   mock-heroic,  from 
consideration.     The  most  important   in   every  point  of 
view  is  the  national,  originally  not  the  work  of  a  man 
but  of  a  people  ;  sometimes,  as  in  the  Iliad  and  Odyssey^ 
indebted  for  its  final  form  to  the  shaping  hand  of  the 
mc  st  consumm:ite  genius  ;  sometimes,  as  in  the  Finnish 
Kakvala,  an  agglomeration  of  legends,  united  by  com- 
munity  of  spirit,  but  not  fashioned  into  an  artistic  whole. 
At  the   remotest   point  from  these  stands  the  artificial 
epic,   like    the    Tescide   of    Boccaccio   or   the  Jason   of 
William    Morris,    where    the   poet   has   selected   for   its 

.  4° 


DANTE'S  EPIC 


41 


mere  picturesqueness  a  subject  which  stands  in  no 
vital  relation  to  himself  and  his  times  ;  and  such  epics 
are  necessarily  the  most  numerous. 

Yet  there  is  an  intermediate  class  of  epic,  partly 
national,  partly  artificial,  where  the  poet,  conscious  of 
a  high  patriotic  purpose,  has,  like  Virgil  and  Camoens, 
sung  the  glories  of  his  country  at  their  zenith  ;  or,  like 
Luctn,  actually  related  contemporary  history ;  or,  like 
Shelley  in  the  Revolt  of  Islam,  bodied  this  forth  under 
the  veil  of  allegory  ;  or,  like  Tasso,  embalmed  ere  too 
late  the  feeling  of  an  age  passing  away.  Two  great  epic 
poets  of  the  intermediate  class  have  done  more  than 
this:  they  have  preserved  and  expressed  the  sentiment 
of  their  age,  its  replies  to  the  deepest  questions  which 
man  can  propound;  have  clothed  these  abstractions 
with  form,  colour,  and  music,  and  have  lent  fleeting 
opinion  an  adamantine  immortality.      These  are  Dante 

and  Milton. 

"  Dante,"  says  Shelley,  'Svas  the  second  epic  poet,  that 
is,  the  second  poet  the  series  of  whose  creations  bore  a 
defined  and  intelligible  relation  to  the  knowledge  and 
sentiment  and  religion  of  the  age  in  which  he  lived. 
Milton  was  the  third."  Hence  Shelley  in  another  place 
calls  Milton  "  the  third  among  the  sons  of  light."  Both 
these  great  men,  in  truth,  versed  in  all  the  learning  of 
their  ages,  and  entertaining  a  conviction  of  the  inde- 
feasible truth  of  what  they  believed  themselves  to  know 
which  no  successor  will  be  able  to  share,  applied  them- 
selves to  embody  these  beliefs  in  works  of  genius.  Even 
as  great  empires  have  vanished  from  the  earth,  and  left 
nothing  but  the  works  of  art  which  w^ere  not  the  greatness 
itself  but  merely  its  testimonies  and  symbols,  so  here  the 
opinions  have  gone  wdiile  the  works  remain.     It  almost 


42  ITALIAN  LITERATURE 

seems  a  law  that  every  great  poem  which  thus  resumes 
the  thought  of  an  age  shall  be  a  song,  not  of  Carlyle's 
phoenix  "soaring  aloft,  hovering  with  outstretched  wings, 
filling  earth  with  her  music,"  but  rather  of  the  same 
phoenix  "with  spheral  swan-song  immolating  herself  in 
flame,  that  she  may  soar  the  higher  and  sing  the  clearer." 
Homer's  theology,  we  may  be  sure,  was  already  obsolete 
for  the  higher  Greek  mind  when,  or  not  long  after, 

"  The  Iliad  and  the  Odyssee 
Rose  to  the  sweilin^j^  of  the  voiceful  seaP 

Our  own  national  epic,  Shakespeare's  series  of  his- 
torical plays,  could  not  be  written  until  the  state  of 
society  it  depicted  was  ceasing  to  exist. 

Dante  himself  has  told  us  the  origin  of  his  poem.  In 
the  last  sonnet  of  his  Vita  Nuova  he  represents  himself 
as  having  in  thought  followed  Beatrice  from  earth  to 
heaven  : 

"  Beyond  the  sphere  that  doth  all  spheres  enfold 
Passes  the  sij^h  that  from  my  heart  takes  flighty 
By  weeping  Love  with  new  perception  dight 

Sure  way  to  the  ethereal  vault  to  hold; 

Then  hai'ing  i.'on  unto  that  height  untold, 
Of  Lady  throned  in  honour  hath  he  sight. 
Resplendent  so,  that  by  tlie  vesturing  light 

The  spirit  peregrine  doth  her  behold. 

So  seen,  tJiat  when  lie  doth  report  the  same, 
I  miss  his  sense,  so  subtle  doth  it  seem 
Unto  the  i'-riti'/m:  heart  that  makes  demand; 

}  et  J.- now  I  that  my  Lady  is  his  theme. 
For  oft  he  nameth  BeatrLe's  name. 
And  then,  dear  Ladies,  well  I  understand" 

Here  is  the  germ  of   the   Paradiso,    at   all  events  ;  but, 
to  preclude    all  niisiipprehension,   Dante    adds:    "After 


BEATRICE  AND  THE  DIVINE  COMEDY      43 

this  sonnet  there  appeared  to  me  a  wondrous  vision, 
wherein  I  beheld  things  which  made  me  resolve  to 
say  no  more  concerning  my  Blessed  One  until  I  could 
treat  of  her  more  worthily.  And  that  I  may  attain  unto 
this  I  study  with  all  my  might,  as  she  truly  knoweth. 
Wherefore  if  it  shall  be  the  pleasure  of  Him  by  whom  all 
things  live  that  my  life  shall  yet  endure  for  some  years,  I 
hope  to  say  concerning  her  that  which  has  never  been  said 
concerning  any  woman."  The  Vita  Nuova  is  believed 
to  have  been  written  about  1294.  At  this  time,  therefore, 
Dante  was  meditating  a  poetical  apotheosis  of  Beatrice 
on  a  scale  surpassing  anything  attempted  before,  al- 
though the  natural  inference  from  his  words  would  seem 
to  be  that  he  had  not  yet  begun  to  write. 

He  would  probably  at  first  contemplate  nothing  more 
than  the  expansion  of  the  thought  of  his  sonnet  into  a 
vision  somewhat  resembling  that  of  Laura  in  Petrarch's 
Trioftfi;  but  ere  long  he  might  say  to  himself,  inverting 
the  question  which  Ellwood  the  Quaker  addressed  to 
Milton:  "Thou  hast  told  us  of  Paradise  gained,  what 
hast  thou  to  tell  us  of  Paradise  lost?"  and,  granted  the 
existence  of  the  intermediate  realm  of  Purgatory,  the 
entire  scheme  of  the  Divina  Comviedia  would  be  present 
to  his  mind.  As  poets  but  rarely  "  imitate  the  example 
of  those  two  prudent  insects  the  bee  and  the  spider,"  he 
would  begin  with  the  Inferno,  where,  notwithstanding 
the  inscription,  offensive  to  an  age  as  far  in  advance  of 
its  sentiment  as  Dante  himself  was  in  advance  of  Homer's 
polytheism  and  anthropomorphism,  which  he  has  thought 
lit  to  place  upon  the  portal,  Beatrice  could  have  neither 
part  nor  lot.     It  must  be  long  indeed  before  he  could 

rejoin  her. 

It  can  hardly  be  said,  then,  that  Beatrice  is  the  heroine 


44 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE 


of  his  poem,  unless  Helen  of  Troy  is  the  heroine  of  the 
Iliad.  Neither  poem  could  have  existed  without  the 
woman  ;  the  action  of  each  turns  entirely  upon  her ;  but 
the  appearance  of  eacli  is  infrequent  until,  in  Beatrice's 
case,  she  appears  as  the  pervading  spirit  of  the  Paradiso, 
Yet,  had  we  merely  known  her  from  the  Divina  Com- 
viedia^  their  opinion  who  regard  her  as  a  mere  symbol 
would  not  have  appeared  so  groundless  as  it  must  in  the 
Hght  of  the  transparent  autobiography  of  the  Vita  Nuova, 
It  the  great  epic  has  given  her  her  world-wide  fame,  she 
is  indebted  for  her  personality  to  the  brief  lyrics  and 
snatches  of  impassioned  prose.  The  old  love,  though 
not  extinct,  had  been  transformed  into  something  far  more 
expansive,  as  alchemists  are  said  to  revive  a  glowing  rose 
from  the  ashes  of  a  faded  one.  When  Dante  himself 
essays  to  give  Can  Grande  some  insight  into  the  purpose 
of  his  poem,  he  does  not  mention  Beatrice,  but  says  : 
''The  object  of  the  whole  work  is  to  make  those  who  live 
in  this  life  leave  their  state  of  misery,  and  to  lead  them 
to  a  state  of  happiness."  By  this,  as  Symonds  points 
out,  is  not  to  be  understood  that  the  purpose  of  the 
poem  was  the  admonition  of  individuals.  "  It  was  both 
moral  and  political.  The  status  misericc  was  the  discord 
of  divided  Christendom  as  well  as  of  the  unregenerate 
will ;  the  status  fclicitaiis  was  tlie  pacification  of  the 
world  under  the  coequal  sway  of  Emperor  and  Pope 
in  Home,  as  well  as  the  restoration  of  the  human  soul 
to  faith." 

The  conception,  tlierefore,  was  essentially  mediaeval. 
It  expressed  the  beliefs  and  aspirations  of  the  Middle 
Age.  It  was  in  poetry  what  the  work  of  another  of  the 
greatest  of  the  Italians,  St.  Thomas  Aquinas,  had  been  in 
theology  and  philosophy — an  endeavour  to  stereotype 


DANTE'S  PHILOSOPHY 


45 


the  dominant  convictions  of  the  age.  And  therefore, 
ahhough  not  among  the  only  genuine  epics  in  the 
highest  sense — those  which  the  nations  have  written 
for  themselves — the  Divina  Comviedia  approaches  these 
more  nearly  than  any  other  epic  of  the  second  class ; 
for,  although  the  utterance  of  a  single  voice,  it  says 
what  the  average  mediaeval  man  would  have  said  had 
he  known  how.  The  nearest  parallel  is  Milton's  epic, 
which  sets  forth  the  view  of  divine  things  which  had 
commended  itself  to  a  large  portion  of  the  Christian 
world,  but  still  only  to  a  portion,  and  therefore  a  less 
memorable  deliverance  than  Dante's.  One  needs  only 
to  consider  how  much  lower  the  Middle  Ages  would 
stand  in  our  estimation  if  their  great  interpreter  had 
never  wTitten,  to  appreciate  the  enormous  importance 
of  Dante's  work  for  history  and  culture. 

Dante's  great  position,  nevertheless,  in  this  point  of 
view,  somewhat  detracts  from  his  originality  in  other 
respects.  He  is  the  man  of  his  age,  not  a  man  in  ad- 
vance of  his  age.  He  does  not,  like  Goethe,  point  the 
path  of  progress  along  an  illimitable  future.  He  has  no 
prevision  of  Bacon  and  Galileo  ;  nor  is  he  fertile  in 
germs,  hints,  or  preiigurements  of  greater  things  to 
come.  His  philosophy  is  that  of  Aquinas,  and  his 
science  that  of  Aristotle.  This  in  no  way  impairs  Iiis 
poetical  power,  and  it  still  remains  the  greatest  of 
marvels  that  the  transcendent  poet  and  the  most  repre- 
sentative thinker  of  the  age  should  have  met  in  the  same 
person.  Much  that  appears  original  in  him  is  really  not 
peculiar  to  him,  as,  for  instance,  his  generous  treatment 
of  the  heathen  world.  There  was  nothing  in  this  that 
could  surprise  any  contemporary.  The  beatification  of 
the   Emperor  Trajan  was  already  an   approved  legend, 


46 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE 


and  similar  promotions  in  the  instances  of  Ripheus  and 
Statins  only  carry  the  principle  somewhat  further.     His 
astonishing  treatment  of  Ulysses  might  be  regarded  as  a 
strong  counterpoise,  but  it  must  be  remembered  that  he 
was  unacquauitcd  with    Homer,  and  probably  took  his 
view  of  the  character  of  Ulysses  from  the  AlncicL     On 
the  whole,  his    attitude    towards   the   classical  world   is 
highly  to  his  credit ;    but  it  merely  expresses  the  dim 
pcTception  of  his  age,  that  greater  men  and  greater  civili- 
sations had  tiourished  before  them,  and  that  inspiration 
from  these  was  wanting  to  transtorm  the  semi-barbarism 
around  them  into  a  well-ordered  society.     Hence  Dante's 
loving  devotion  to  Virgil,  the  only  portrait  in  his  epic 
that  evinces  any  considerable  power  of  character  paint- 
ing ;  and  his  tenderness  to  all  things  classical.     Had  he 
flo'Iirished  along  with    Petrarch    and    Boccaccio,   Dante 
would  have  been  a  great  humanist,  his  scholarship  and 
statesmanship  would  liave  found  wider  and  more  pro- 
fitable fields  of  action  than  his  own  age  vouchsafed  to 
them ;  but  we  should  not  have  had  the  Divine  Comedy , 
towering    above   every   other   w^ork   of    the    age    much 
higher    even    than    Shakespeare    towers   above    contem- 
pol-ary  dramatists  ;  and  all  his  own,  even  to  its  metrical 
structure,  since  terza  rima  appears  to  have  been  Dante's 

invention. 

The  thought  at  the  foundation  of  the  Divina  Com- 
media,  nevertheless,  is  more  ancient  than  Dante,  although 
the  details  evince  marvellous  fertility  of  invention.  The 
idea  of  a  descent  to  the  under-world  is  the  groundwork 
of  a  primitive  Assyrian  epic  in  comparison  with  whose 
antiquity  the  similar  narratives  in  the  Buddhistic  and 
other  scriptures  are  but  of  yesterdav.  It  is  found  in 
Phito's  Republic  and  the  Odyssey^  both  unknown  to  Dante, 


PRECURSORS  OF  DANTE 


47 


who  had,  however,  the  sixth  book  of  the  ^neid  by  heart, 
and  implies  his  obligation  by  making  Virgil  his  guide. 
This  is  a  much  more  likely  source  for  his  poem  than  the 
vision  of  Tundal  and  other  similar  mediaeval  legends, 
which  are  nevertheless  important  as  showing  how  strong 
was  the  hold  of  the  conception  upon  the  popular  mind. 
The  vast  difference  between  Virgil's  treatment  and 
Dante's  needs  no  elucidation.  Virgil  writes  like  a  philo- 
sopher, and  Dante  like  a  prophet.  There  is,  no  doubt, 
abundance  of  allegory  in  the  Divina  Commedia,  but, 
generally  speaking,  the  poet's  vision  is  direct  and  imme- 
diate. Symonds  puts  the  essence  of  the  poem  into  a 
w^ord  by  calling  it  apocalyptic,  and  perhaps  there  is  no 
other  great  work  to  which  on  the  whole  it  presents  so 
close  an  analogy  as  the  Revelation  of  St.  John  ;  but 
neither  this  nor  any  forerunner  affords  any  precedent 
for  Dante's  astonishing  innovation  of  peopling  the 
unseen  worlds  mainly  with  his  own  and  his  readers' 
contemporaries,  men  whose  hands  he  had  clasped  or 
repelled,  wnth  whom  he  had  sat  at  the  council-board 
or  w^hom  he  had  encountered  in  conflict,  or  w4io, 
personally  unknown,  had  thrilled  him  with  the  report 
of  their  fortunes  or  misfortunes,  their  good  deeds  or 
their  crimes. 

Let  any  one  try  to  imagine  a  modern  poet  treating  the 
nineteenth  century  in  the  same  manner,  and  he  will  be 
penetrated  by  a  sense  of  the  gigantic  nature  of  the  attempt, 
success  in  which  could  only  be  possible  to  an  intense 
realist  capable  of  making  his  phantoms  as  substantial  as 
when  they  walked  the  earth.  Yet  this  is  only  one  side 
of  Dante's  mighty  task,  which  w^as  not  only  to  render  the 
unseen  world  visible  and  almost  palpable,  but  to  embody 
what  he  fondly  believed  to  be  a  system  of  infallible  dog- 


48 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE 


DANTE  AND  MILTON 


49 


matic  truth.  It  need  hardly  be  said  that  it  is  to  the 
consummate  execution  of  the  former  part  of  his  mission 
that  he  is  chiefly  indebted  for  liis  fame  with  the  world  at 
lari^e.  The  InfeniOy  where  description  and  portraiture 
predominate,  has  impressed  the  imagination  of  mankind 
far  more  powerfully  than  the  more  mystical  and  doc- 
trinal Piirgatorio  and  Paradiso, 

This  is  not  the  judgment  of  the  most  refined  readers. 
"The  acutest  critics,"  savs  Shelley,  *^  have  justly  re- 
versed the  judgment  of  the  vulgar,  and  the  order  of 
the  great  acts  of  the  Divina  Commedia  is  the  measure 
of  the  admiration  which  they  accord  to  Hell,  Purga- 
tory, and  Paradise."  *' The  whole  Piirgatorio;*  says 
Symonds,  ''  is  a  monument  to  the  beauty  and  tranquillity 
of  Dante's  soul.  The  whole  Paradiso  is  a  proof  of  its 
purity  and  radiance  and  celestial  love."  This  is  true, 
and  yet  it  is  indisputable  that  in  thinking  of  Dante  the 
Inferno  always  comes  first  to  tlic  mind,  and  that  this 
portion  of  his  poem,  had  one  part  only  been  pub- 
lished, would  have  dc )nc  far  more  to  preserve  his  name 
than  either  of  the  others  in  the  like  case,  and  this 
although  it  is  far  more  tainted  than  they  are  with  his 
most  characteristic  and  least  pardonable  faults.  The 
chief  causes,  no  doubt,  are  that  the  material  sublime  is 
always  more  impressive  to  the  mass  of  men  than  the 
moral ;  that  there  is  an  element  of  risk  and  adventure  in 
the  poet's  journey  among  the  shades  absent  from  the 
other  two  parts  ;  and  that  Virgil  is  a  more  tangible  and 
human  personage  than  Beatrice.  Yet  it  must  also  be 
admitted  that  the  diviner  beauty  of  the  two  latter  parts 
suffers  from  an  admixture  of  theological  and  philoso- 
phical disquisition,  not  the  less  tedious  because  it  was 
impossible   for  the   poet  to    avoid    it.      IMilton    tells    us 


that  the  fallen  spirits  reasoned  "of  fate,  freewill,  fore- 
knowledge absolute,"  but  judiciously  avoids  reporting 
their  observations. 

Dante's  place  in  comparison  with  the  other  chief  poets 
of  the  world  is  difficult  to  determine,  for  none  but  he 
has  written  an  apocalypse.  He  is  emphatically  the  Seer 
among  them,  the  "Soothsayer"  in  the  original  sense  of 
the  term,  the  most  independent  of  poetical  fiction  and 
convention.  He  is  also  by  far  the  most  individual  and 
autobiographic,  and  the  only  one  who  is  the  hero  of  his 
own  poem.  Milton,  who  is  most  naturally  paralleled 
with  him,  does  not  deliver  a  revelation,  but  records  a 
history.  This  at  once  places  Dante  in  a  higher  category 
than  Milton  as  an  elementary  force,  and  when  we  con- 
sider the  circumstances  of  their  respective  ages  it  seems 
impossible  to  deny  that  Dante  was  by  far  the  more 
wonderful  man.  This  does  not  necessarily  establish  the 
superiority  of  the  Divina  Commedia  to  Paradise  Lost, 
Isaiah  presents  himself  in  a  more  august  and  venerable 
character  than  Homer,  but  his  prophecy  is  not  as 
majestic  as  the  Iliad,  It  is  also  difhcult,  when  assigning 
the  relative  ranks  of  poets,  to  discriminate  strictly  be- 
tween the  claims  that  arise  from  mere  poetical  endow- 
ment and  the  significance  of  their  position  in  history. 
One  may  stand  upon  the  higher  pedestal,  and  the  other 
may  have  the  sweeter  voice. 

In  one  point  of  view,  Dante's  figure  is  the  most 
imposing  of  any  poet's ;  for,  intensely  local  as  he  is, 
he  yet  interprets  all  mediaeval  Europe.  When,  how- 
ever, he  is  compared  with  his  closest  analogue,  Milton, 
simply  as  a  poet,  it  is  not  so  clear  that  the  comparison 
is  to  his  advantage.  The  great  characteristics  which 
chiefly   discriminate   him   from   all  other  poets  are   an 


II 


50 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE 


DANTE  AND  POSTERITY 


St 


!? 


ineffable  purity,  such  as  we  see  in  the  early  Italian 
painters,  and  an  intensity  of  minute  description  which 
surpasses  the  similar  performances  of  others,  except, 
England  may  say  with  pride,  Robert  Browning's,  as 
the  work  of  the  etching  tool  surpasses  the  work  of 
the  pen.  These  gifts  are  best  displayed  upon  a  small 
scale,  and  hence  Dante's  cabinet  pieces  are  more  suc- 
cessful than  his  vast  pictures.  They  depend,  too,  in 
the  last  resort  upon  the  poet's  own  fidelity  of  observa- 
tion, and  hence  his  best  delineations  retrace  what  he  has 
actually  seen.  His  general  description  of  the  Inferno 
is  more  impressive  from  its  unflinching  realism  than 
from  its  imaginative  sublimity.  There  is  no  grandeur 
in  his  picture  of  Lucifer,  though  much  quaint  ingenuity. 
Milton's  '^not  less  than  archangel  ruined"  tells  us  more 
and  affects  us  more  profoundly  than  all  Dante's  elaborate 
word-painting.  If  Milton  has  nothing  so  beautiful  as 
the  exquisite  comparison  of  Beatrice  to  a  bird  awaiting 
the  dawn  that  she  may  gather  food  for  her  young, 
neither  has  Dante  anything  so  sublime  as  Milton's 
comparison  of  the  flying  fiend  to  a  fleet  discerned 
afar  off  as  hanging  in  the  clouds,  or  of  Satan  equipped 
for  battle  to  the  comet  "that  fires  the  length  of 
Ophiuchus  huge."  The  magniflcent  lines  in  which 
Tennyson  has  celebrated  the  might  and  music  of 
Milton  would  seem  inappropriate  to  Dante.  In  an 
age  when  minute  description  is  in  fashion,  Dante's 
virtuoso-like  skill  in  graphic  delineation  has  been  favour- 
able to  his  renown  ;  but  a  reaction  must  ensue  when  a 
bolder  and  ampler  style  of  handling  is  again  appreciated 
at  its  worth. 

If,  however,  Dante  is  on  the  whole  inferior  to  Milton 
in  poetry  pure  and  simple,  he  is  more  important  as  a 


representative  of  a  great  era  of  mankind.  In  him  the 
Middle  Age  lives  as  it  does  in  its  cathedrals  ;  and  when 
the  cathedrals  have  crumbled,  the  Diinne  Comedy  will 
be  as  fresh  as  it  is  now.  Nor  is  this  significance  merely 
historical  or  antiquarian.  From  the  very  first  it  w^ 
appreciated  by  contemporaries.  Repentant  Florence 
endowed  lectures  upon  the  Divine  Comedy,  and  Boccaccio 
was  the  first  lecturer.  In  the  next  century  Frezzi  tries 
to  transpose  it  into  another  key  ;  and  Attavanti  cites  from 
the  pulpit  Dantes  ilk  noster  as  copiously  and  reverentially 
as  any  of  the  Fathers.  Even  in  the  age  of  the  Renais- 
sance, Pius  the  Fourth's  cardinals  cap  quotations  from 
Dante  as  the  last  notes  of  Palestrina's  Mass  of  Pope 
Marcellus  die  down  the  aisles  of  St.  Peter's.  If  he 
afterwards  fell  into  comparative  abeyance  for  a  time, 
it  must  be  remembered  that  Italy  lay  prostrate  in  the 
seventeenth  century,  and  that  his  genius  did  not  sort 
well  with  the  especial  mission  assigned  to  her  in  the 
eighteenth. 

There  can  be  no  surer  proof  of  Dante's  eternal  vitality 
than  that  the  revival  of  his  fame  coincided  with  the 
manifestation  of  ideas  apparently  the  reverse  of  his  own. 
The  French  Revolution  brought  the  media^wal  poet  into 
fashion  ;  and  although  his  best  expositors,  whom  it  is 
upon  the  whole  most  profitable  to  study,  have  been 
those  so  nearly  at  his  own  intellectual  standpoint  as 
Dean  Church  and  Maria  Rossetti,  his  most  eloquent 
champions  have  been  those  who,  on  a  superficial  view, 
might  seem  to  have  least  in  common  with  him — Lamen- 
nais,  Shelley,  Carlyle,  Symonds,  Mazzini,  Leopardi.  The 
feelings  of  the  man  of  the  nineteenth  century,  attracted 
by  the  divine  and  eternal  elements  in  Dante  with  a 
vehemence  proportioned  to  his  repulsion  by  the  tran- 


52 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE 


sient  and  accidental,  are  thus  powerfully  expressed  by 
the  greatest  of  living  Italian  poets  : 

"  Dante ^  Jioik^  is  it  that  my  vows  I  bear ^ 

Submitted  at  thy  shrine  to  bend  and  pray  ^ 
To  Night  alone  relinquishing  thy  lay^ 

And  with  returiiing  sun  returning  there? 

Never  for  me  hath  Lucy  breathed  a  prayer, 
Matilde  with  lusiral  fount  washed  sin  away. 
Or  Beatrice  on  celestial  way 

Led  up  her  7nortal  love  by  starry  stair. 

Thy  Holy  Empire  L  abhor,  the  head 
Of  thy  great  Frederick  in  OloncHs  vale 
Most  joyfully  had  cloven,  crown  and  brains. 

Empire  and  Church  in  crumbling  ruin  fail : 
Abo7'e,  thy  ringing  song  from  heaven  is  sped: 
The  Gods  depart,  the  poet's  hymn  re  mains. ^"^ 

— Carducci. 


CHAPTER  V 


PETRARCH  AS  MAN  OF  LETTERS 


Although,  hardly  less  than  Shakespeare,  born  not  for 
an  age  but  for  all  time,  Dante  was  nevertheless  in  an 
especial  sense  the  poet  of  the  mediaival  period.  The 
vast  advance  which  he  effected  in  the  poetic  art  had  no 
counterpart  in  a  corresponding  progress  in  the  world 
of  intellect.  Powerful  as  his  mind  was,  it  seemed  as  an 
organ  of  thought  rather  architectural  than  creative  ;  more 
intent  on  combining  the  materials  it  found  into  the  most 
aujiust  edifice  which  their  constitution  admitted,  than  on 
gaining  new  channels  for  feeling  and  intelligence.  This 
was  to  be  the  work  of  a  mind  far  less  original  than 
Dante's,  but  happily  placed  at  the  confluence  of  medi- 
aeval ideas  with  an  element  by  which  they  were  des- 
tined to  be  submerged  and  transformed.  In  the  year 
1304,  on  the  very  day  when  Dante  and  his  exiled  com- 
panions were  making  their  desperate  attempt  to  fight 
their  way  back  into  Florence,  FRANCESCO  Petrarca, 
the  child  of  one  of  their  number,  was  born  a  humanist 
by  tlie  grace  of  God  in  the  Tuscan  town  of  Arezzo. 
Six  years  after  Dante's  death  a  casual  encounter  with 
a  lady  who  awoke  the  faculty  of  song  within  him  made 
the  scholar  the  first  poet  of  his  age.  But  neither  the 
innate  love  of  letters  nor  the  awakened  faculty  of  poetry 
would  have  exalted  Petrarch  to  the  literary  supremacy 


53 


54  ITALIAN  LITERATURE 

he  attained  if  he  had  not  Uved  at  the  very  juncture  when 
literature,  hitherto  cuUivated  in  some  of  its  branches  for 
mere  utiHty,  in  others  as  an  ornament  of  courtly  hfe, 
was  beginning  to  revive  as  a  profession.  Dante,  a  states- 
man, a""  philosopher,  a  prophet,  was  not  in  a  true  sense 
a  man  of  letters,  and  neither  his  ideals  nor  his  con- 
temporary influence  extended  beyond  the  limits  of  Italy. 
Petrarch  was  the  first  modern  literary  dictator,  the  first 
author  to  receive  the  unanimous  homage  of  a  world 
of  culture.  Such  a  world  had  not  existed  since  the 
decay  of  antique  civilisation,  and  he  may  be  said  to 
have  been  in  a  manner  both  its  cause  and  its  effect. 
As  the  Erasmus,  the  Voltaire,  the  Goethe  of  his  age, 
he  claims  a  more  distinguished  place  in  literary  history 
than  even  his  exquisite  poetry,  much  less  his  but  rela- 
tively ample  erudition,  could  have  secured  for  hun. 

Seven  months  after  Petrarch's  birth  his  mother  was 
allowed  to  return  to  her  patrimonial  estate  near  Flo- 
rence, where  she  was  sometimes  secretly  visited  by  her 
husband.  The  elder  Petrarca  (or,  as  the  name  was  then 
spelt,  Petracco)  might  have  returned  to  his  native  city  on 
the  same  dishonourable  terms  as  those  offered  to  Dante, 
but,  like  Dante,  spurned  them.  Despairing  of  repatria- 
tion, he  betook  himself  to  Avignon,  then  the  seat  of 
the  Papal  Court,  where  he  followed  the  profession  of 

the  law. 

Petrarch  was  successively  educated  at  Carpentras,  at 
Montpellier,  and  at  the  University  of  Bologna,  where 
his  father's  commands  compelled  him  to  the  study  of 
jurisprudence.  The  death  of  his  parent  in  1326  recalled 
him  to  Avignon,  and  restored  him  to  letters.  To  qualify 
himself  for  ecclesiastical  preferment  he  received  the 
tonsure  without  taking  orders,  a  step  not  unusual  in 


MEETING  WITH   LAURA 


55 


those  days,  and  devoted  himself  entirely  to  literature. 
The  ''  Babylonish  captivity  "  of  the  Church  at  Avignon, 
violently  as  he  denounces  it  in  his  writings,  was  highly 
favourable  to  his  interests,  for  it  helped  him  to  the 
patronage  of  Cardinal  Colonna,  whose  brother,  after- 
wards Bishop  of  Lombes,  he  had  known  intimately  at 
the  University  of  Bologna.  It  was  probably  from  this 
source  that  he  derived  means  to  mingle  with  gay  society 
and  indulge  in  the  fashionable  follies  of  eccentric  cos- 
tume, which  he  ridicules  in  his  later  writings ;  for 
letters  as  yet  afforded  him  no  sure  subsistence,  and  his 
scanty  patrimony  had  been  embezzled  or  wasted  by  his 
guardians.  On  April  6,  1327,1  occurred  the  most  mo- 
mentous event  of  his  life,  his  vision  of  Laura  in  church 
"at  the  hour  of  prime,"  which  made  him  a  poet.  But 
for  this,  he  might  never  have  written  in  the  vernacular. 
Cicero  and  Virgil,  his  literary  idols,  enjoined  Latin  com- 
position, to  w^hich  in  all  probability  he  would  have  exclu- 
sively addicted  himself  but  for  the  need  of  celebrating 
Laura  in  a  language  which  she  understood. 

The  question  of  Laura's  identity  will  be  best  con- 
sidered along  with  the  poems  devoted  to  her  praise 
and  her  adorer's  passion.  Neither  love  nor  society, 
meanwhile,  kept  Petrarch  from  letters,  and  his  repu- 
tation waxed  daily.  He  displayed  a  happy  faculty  for 
maintaining  relations  with  the  great,  equally  honourable 
to  both  parties,  exempt  alike  from  presumption  and 
servility.  In  1330  he  spent  a  considerable  time  with 
Bishop  Colonna  at  his  Pyrenean  diocese  of  Lombes, 
and  on  his  return  was  formally  enrolled  as  a  member 

*  Petrarch  says  on  a  Good  Friday,  but  Good  Friday  did  not  fall  on  April  6 
in  1327,  and  the  statement  of  the  encounter  having  taken  place  in  church  at 
all  is  inconsistent  with  other  passages  in  his  writings. 


56 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE 


of  the  Cardinal's  household.  His  residence  at  Avignon 
made  him  known  to  the  learned  English  prelate,  Richard 
de  Bury,  and  other  distinguished  visitors  at  the  Papal 
Court,  and  he  began  to  enjoy  the  favour  of  Robert,  King 
of  Naples.  His  vernacular  poetry,  though  far  inferior  to 
that  wliich  he  was  destined  to  produce,  was  nevertheless 
making  him  and  Laura  famous,  for  he  exclaims  in  an 
early  sonnet : 

**  Blest  all  s{)^7j^s  and  music  that  have  spread 
Her  land  afarJ^ 

In  1333  he  made  a  journey  to  Paris,  Belgium,  and  the 
Rhine,  of  which  he  has  given  us  a  lively  account  in  his 
correspondence,  and  which  produced  at  least  one  sonnet 
which  sliowed  tliat  by  this  time  he  wanted  but  little  of 
perfection  : 

"  Tkroiti^h  7m Id  uiJiospitable  woods  I  rove 

Where  fear  all  ends  even  on  the  soldier's  way, 
Dreadless  of  til   for  nought  can  me  affray 

Saving  that  Sun  which  shines  by  light  of  Love  : 

And  chant,  as  idly  carolling  I  move^ 

Her^  wJiom  not  II.         /  itself  can  keep  away^ 
Home  in  inv  eves;  and  ladies  I  survey 

Encircling  /.     ,   .  ho  oaks  and  beeches  pro^'e. 

Her  voice  in  sighing  breeze  and  rustling  bough 
And  leaf  I  seem  to  /tear,  and  birds,  and  rills 
Murmuring  the  luJiile  they  slip  through  grassy  green. 

Rarely  have  silences  and  lonely  thrills 
Of  overs  kudo :.  'ing  forests  pleased  as  noTU, 
Except  for  my  own  Sun  too  little  seen.^^ 

In  the  same  year  Petrarch  graduated  as  a  patriotic 
poet  by  composing  his  fme  Latin  metrical  epistle  on  the 
woes  of  Italy.  In  1335  he  received  from  the  Pope  a 
canonry  in  the  cathedral  of  his  patron  the  Bishop  of 


VAUCLUSE 


57 


Lombes.  In  1336  he  achieved  his  celebrated  ascent  of 
Mount  Ventoux,  w^hich  marks  an  era  as  the  inauguration 
of  mountain-climbing  for  pleasure's  sake.  In  1336  and 
1337  he  undertook  his  first  journey  to  Rome,  which  he 
found  in  a  most  lamentable  condition  from  rapine  and 
civil  w^ar.  Attributing  this  to  the  absence  of  the  Popes 
in  France,  he  began  his  long  series  of  exhortations  to 
them  to  return,  to  which,  being  throughout  his  lifetime 
Frenchmen,  they  naturally  turned  deaf  ears.  Hence  in 
a  measure  the  disgust  with  Avignon  which  led  him  to 
seclude  himself  more  and  more  in  Vaucluse  (shut  valley), 
the  picturesque  retreat  on  the  Sorga  whither  he  betook 
himself  in  1337,  a  beautiful  description  of  which  by 
Ugo  Foscolo  may  be  read  in  Reeve's  biography.  His 
adoration  of  Laura  had  not  prevented  his  contracting 
less  spiritual  ties,  for   two   children  were  born  to  him 

about  this  time. 

Petrarch's  rural  leisure  w\as  largely  employed  in  the 
composition  of  a  Latin  history  of  Rome,  which  can 
have  had  no  critical  value,  but  would  have  been  deeply 
interesting  as  exhibiting  the  classical  feeling  of  the  re- 
presentative of  the  early  Renaissance.  He  ultimately 
destroyed  it,  and  turned  to  the  composition  of  his  Latin 
epic  on  the  Punic  war,  Africa,  for  and  from  which 
he  long  expected  immortality.  His  detestation  of  the 
Papal  Court  breaks  out  about  this  time  in  some  powx^rful 
sonnets.  His  Italian  poems,  meanwhile,  had  made  their 
way  with  the  world  to  a  degree  surprising  in  an  age 
unacquainted  with  printing.  In  1340  he  received  on  the 
same  day  the  oifer  of  the  poetic  laurel  from  the  cities  of 
Paris  and  Rome.  Deciding  for  the  latter,  he  embarked 
at  Marseilles  in  February  1 341,  voyaged  to  Naples,  re- 
ceived   signal    marks    of    favour    from    the    King,    and, 


58 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE 


repairing  to  Rome,  was  invested  with  the  laurel  by  the 
Senator  of  the  city,  April  8,  1341.  From  this  day  the 
history  of  modern  literature  as  a  recognised  pov/er  may 
be  said  to  date.  Ere  his  return  at  the  beginning  of 
1342,  he  had  finished  his  Africa,  and  bought  a  house  at 
Parma  to  give  himself  a  footing  in  his  native  land. 

In  1343  Petrarch  was  again  in  Italy,  discharging  an 
important  diplomatic  mission  with  which  he  had  been 
entrusted  by  the  new  Pope  Clement  VI.  to  the  Court  of 
Naples;  the  state  of  which  he  describes  in  dark  colours, 
not  too  dark,  as  the  history  of  the  hapless  Queen  Joanna, 
Robert's  successor,  sufficiently  proves.  He  nevertheless 
rendered  himself  acceptable  to  her,  and,  his  mission 
honourably  discharged,  repaired  to  Parma,  where  (1344) 
he  wrote  the  first  of  his  great  political  odes,  Italia  mia 
benchc  il  parlar  sia  indarno^  and  whence  he  was  chased 
by  civil  discord.  He  did  not,  however,  return  to  Avignon 
until  towards  the  end  of  this  year.  The  next  few  years 
were  chiefly  spent  in  literary  occupations,  the  most  re- 
markable of  which  was  the  composition  (1347)  of  his 
ode  to  the  Tribune  Cola  di  Rienzi,  in  whom  he  saw  the 
deliverer  of  his  country.  Petrarch's  course  was  not  free 
from  the  imputation  of  ingratitude  to  his  old  friends 
and  patrons,  the  Colon na  family  ;  yet  it  would  have  been 
worse  to  have  been  silent  at  the  prospect,  however  brief 
and  delusive,  of  the  resurrection  of  Rome.  Other  poets 
before  him  had  written  on  Italian  politics,  but  none,  not 
even  Dante,  had  so  exalted  their  theme  by  eloquence  and 
ennobling  largeness  of  view  : 

**  Her  ancient  waits,  which  stitl  with  fear  and  love 
The  wortd  admires,  wJieneer  it  cails  to  mind 
The  days  of  FJd,  and  turns  to  look  behind; 
Her  hoar  and  caverned  monuments  above 


DEATH  OF  LAURA 


59 


The  dust  of  men  whose  fame,  until  the  world 
Jn  dissolution  sink,  can  never  fail ; 
Her  all,  that  in  one  ruin  now  lies  hurled, 
Hopes  to  have  healed  by  thee  its  every  ail. 
O  faithful  Brutus  I  noble  Scipios  dead! 
To  you  what  triumph,  where  ye  now  are  blest. 
If  of  our  worthy  choice  the  fame  have  spread! 
And  how  his  laurelled  crest 
Will  old  Fabricius  rear,  with  joy  elate 
That  his  own  Ro?ne  again  shall  beauteous  be  and  great  /^^ 

— Macgregor. 

The  next  year,  1348,  was  one  of  havoc  and  desolation 
for  Europe,  through  the  ravages  of  the  Black  Death, 
which  swept  away  a  larger  proportion  of  her  inhabitants 
than  any  similar  visitation  recorded  in  history.^  Laura 
was  among  the  victims,  dying  on  April  6,  the  anniversary 
of  her  meeting  with  Petrarch.  Cardinal  Colonna,  his 
chief  patron  since  the  death  of  the  Bishop  of  Lombes, 
was  also  carried  off  on  July  3.  Nothing  can  be  added 
to  his  own  words  : 

"  The  lofty  Column  a7id  the  Laurel  green, 

IVhose  shade  was  shelter  for  yny  weary  thought^ 

Are  broken;  mine  no  longer  that  which  sought 
North,  south  and  cast  and  west  shall  not  be  seen. 
Ravished  by  Death  the  treasures  twain  have  been 

Whereby  I  wended  with  glad  courage  fraught. 

By  land  or  lordship  ne^er  to  be  rebought. 
Or  golden  heap  or  gem  of  Orient  shee7i. 
If  this  the  high  arbitrament  of  Fate, 

What  else  remains  for  me  than  visage  bent. 

And  eye  embathed  and  spirit  desolate  9 
O  life  of  man,  in  prospect  excellent ! 

What  scarce  slow  striving  years  accumulate 

So  lightly  iri  a  morning  to  be  spent  /  " 

Petrarch's  demeanour  after  the  death  of  his  Laura 
presents   a   strong    contrast   to    Dante's    after   the   like 


6o 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE 


DEATH   OF  PETRARCH 


6£ 


bereavement,  nor  docs  he  suffer  by  the  comparison. 
Notliint^  can  surpass  the  poii^nancy  of  Dante's  iirst  grief 
av  depicted  in  tfie  n/d  Niwra :  but  lie  soon  forms  an- 
otlier  tic,  and  though  liic  memory  of  Beatrice  is  ever 
with  him,  the  luunan  affection  subhmates  more  and  more 
into  an  abstract  spiritual  type.  Petrarch's  utterances, 
on  the  other  hand,  wear  at  first  sometliing  of  a  conven- 
tional seinbhuKc,  Ivut  constantK'  increase  in  depth  and 
tenderness,  and  while  he  remains  the  humanist  in  his 
studies  and  the  diplomatist  in  active  life,  his  poetry,  as 
of  old,  is  all  but  monopolised  by  his  one  passion.  As 
his  attachment  to  Laura  in  her  life  had  been  compatible 
witli  frequent  and  long  absences,  so  her  death  did  not 
prevent  him  from  dischargnig  the  pulMic  functions  htly 
entrusted  to  the  most  eminent  scholar  of  his  age. 

Althougli  he  often  expresses  in  his  verse  his  delight 
in  revisiting  the  Iruiks  of  the  Sorga,  his  life  from  this 
time  was  chieily  s^ient  in  Upper  Italy,  much  occupied 
by  the  discliarge  of  diplomatic  commissions  from  the 
Pope,  the  Venetian  Republic,  and  the  Lords  of  Milan 
and  I^adua;  constantly  appealing  to  the  Avignon  Popes 
to  terminate  the  ''  Babylonish  captivity"  of  the  Church  ; 
vexed  by  the  undutifulness  of  his  natural  son,  but  hnd- 
ing  comfort  in  his  daughter  ;  indefatigable  in  collecting 
and  transcribing  manuscripts ;  giving,  though  himself 
ignorant  of  Greek,  a  powerful  impulse  to  Hellenic  studies 
by  commissioning  a  Latin  translation  of  Homer;  pro- 
ducing many  of  his  most  pleasing  minor  Latin  writings ; 
and  throwir.g  his  last  energies  into  the  apotheosis  of 
Laura  in  his  Trioiifi.  He  went  to  Paris  to  congratulate 
John,  King  of  Frrmee,  on  his  release  from  captivity  in 
England;  and  wa^  niesent  at  the  marriage  of  Lionel, 
Duke  of  Clarence,  at    Milan,   where  or  soon  atterwards 


he  may  possibly  have  encountered  Chaucer.  Boccaccio 
followed  him  with  respectful  homage,  and  almost  his 
last  literary  labour  was  the  Latin  translation  of  the 
Morcntiiie's  tale  of  Patient  Grisclda.  The  last  four 
years  of  his  life,  though  with  many  intervals  of  public 
business,  were  chiefly  spent  in  his  retirement  at  Arqua, 
a  village  in  the  Euganean  Hills,  where  death  overtook 
him  as  he  bent  over  a  book,  July  20,  1374.  He 
had   virtually   hnished  the    Trionji  about  three   months 

previously. 

We  have  devoted  more  space  to  the  biography  of 
Petrarch  than  to  that  of  Dante,  because,  although  Dante 
towers  above  him  as  a  poet,  I\'trarch  is  the  more  im- 
portant hgure  in  Italian  literary  history.  Dante  stands 
alone  :  venerated  as  he  was  by  his  countrymen,  and 
not  wholly  destitute  of  imitators,  he  yet  founded  no 
school,  and  his  influence  on  the  development  of  the 
Italian  intellect  is  slight  in  comparison  with  Petrarch's. 
Together  with  the  great  schoolman  who  quitted  tlie  world 
as  he  entered  it,  he  sums  up  the  Middle  Age,  which 
in  him  and  Aquinas  attains  its  highest  development. 
Petrarch,  on  the  other  hand,  is  the  representative  Italian. 
He  does  not,  like  Dante,  deliver,  but  is  himself  a  pro- 
phecy :  the  future  of  Italian  culture  is  prefigured  in  him. 
He  was  also  the  hrst  to  bestow  on  Italy  an  unquestioned 
supremacy  in  the  world  of  literature,  and  was  the 
earliest  restorer  of  the  republic  of  letters,  a  conception 
extinct  in  the  ages  of  barbarism.  In  this  restoration, 
transcending  the  limits  of  his  own  country,  his  Latin 
writings  were  necessarily  more  influential  than  his 
ItaliaiV  ^ind  although  they  do   not   properly   belong  to 


^  "It  is  pleasing. ■'  -a\^  Colciidi^c.  in  a  note  to  his  lillle-know  n  Maximiur, 
♦'to  contemplate  in  this  illu^lii"Us  man  ai  once  the  benefactor  ol  his  own  times 


^faMntei"^'***-*'' t.n«frtnj.t£j<»<mM.iiH»-ft.* 


Su. -^-jMLWfc*  Jioi  iiBtj  *a*HM -Hfajf  -  I  *n  »*.»i.>*i^a*' ?*ikifc*">'-wi  McVirf 


62  ITALIAN  LITERATURE 

our   subject,   their   great  Importance  in   the  history  of 
culture  entitles  them  to  a  few  words. 

The  chief  causes  of  Petrarch's  faihire  as  a  Latin  poet 
are  evident.      In  the  infancy  of  vernacular  literature  it 
was  not  sufficiently  understood  that  compositions  m  a 
dead  language,  however  exquisite,  must  fail  to  bestow 
immortality.     Nor  could  Petrarch  himself  be  fully  aware 
how  impossible  it  was  to  write  like  a  Roman  poet  in  the 
new  dawn   of  reviving  classical   studies.      It  took  two 
centuries  of  culture  to  produce  a  Vida  and  a  Sannazaro, 
and  if  their  names  are  undying,  the  same  can  hardly  be 
said  of  their  Latin  works.    But  there  was  a  deeper  reason. 
Petrarch   attempted  epic  composition  without  epic  m- 
spiralion.     His  genius  was  entirely  lyric,  and  his  poetry 
has  little  value  except  where  it  palpitates  with  lyrical  feel- 
ing.    When  he  wTites  on  the  misfortunes  of  his  country, 
he  is  a  poet  even  when  writing  in  Latin  ;  and  his  great 
Latin  epic,  the  Africa,  too  often  tame,  notwithstanding 
its  true  natural  feeling,  sometimes,  especially  when  near 
the  end  of  the  poem  he  speaks  of  himself,  kindles  into 
poetry.    The  Latin  verses  placed  by  Coleridge  on  the 
half-title  of  his  own  love-poems  in  Sibylline  Leaves  are 
almost   as   exquisite   as    tlie    tenderest    passages   of    the 
Canzoniere  itself  :  ^ 

"  Quas  humilis  tcncro  stylus  olim  ejffudit  tn  avo^ 
Perki^is  hie  iacrymas,  et  quod  pharetratus  acuta 
Jlle  puer  puero  fecit  mi  hi  cuspide  vulnus. 


and  the  delight  of  the  succeeding,  and  working  on  his  contemporaries  by  that 
purti^Mi  of  his  works  whicii  i>  Ica.^t  in  account  with  jioslerity." 

1  I-runi  ilic  epistle  to  Barhatus,  Coleridge  says  of  the  entire  composition: 
•Mlad  Petrarch  lived  a  century  later,  and,  retaining  all  his  substantiality  oi 
head  and  heart,  added  to  it  the  elegancies  and  manly  politure  of  Fracastorius, 
FIaminiu>,  \'ida,  and  their  co-rivals,  this  letter  would  have  been  a  classicaj 
gem  "  [Anima  Poetce,  p.  263). 


.PETRARCH'S  LATIN  WORKS  63 

Omnia  paulaiim  consumit  lovgior  cetas^ 
Vivendoque  sitnul  jnorimur^  rapiinurque  manendo. 
Ipse  mihi  collatus  enim  non  ille  videbor: 
Frons  alia  est,  moresque  alii,  nova  mentis  imago, 
Voxque  aliud  sonat. 

Pectore  nunc gclido  calidos  miseremur  ajnantes, 
Jamque  arsisse  pudet,     Veteres  tranquilla  tumultus 
Mens  horret,  relegensque  alium  putat  ista  locuiumP 

Although  Petrarch  preferred  Latin  to  Italian  in  the 
abstract,  and  even  affected  to  undervalue  Dante  because 
his  chief  works  were  composed  in  the  vulgar  tongue,  he 
acknowledged  that  he  had  missed  the  perfection  in  Latin 
which  he  was  conscious  of  having  attained  in  Italian.  His 
only  prose-writings  with  any  significance  for  us  now  are 
the  lOitobiographic.  Some  of  his  ethical  disquisitions, 
however,  if  they  had  come  down  from  classic  times,  would 
have  been  regarded  as  precious  monuments  of  antiquity. 
The  most  important  of  these  is  the  De  Remediis  utriusque 
FortuncB  (1356),  in  two  books,  the  first  treating  of  the 
snares  of  prosperity,  the  second  arming  the  soul  against 
adversity.  The  reflections  are  forcibly  expressed,  but  in 
themselves  somewhat  trite.  His  tract  De  sua  et  aliorum 
Ignorantia  (1361),  on  the  other  hand,  abounds  with 
energy,  and  gives  a  lively  picture  of  the  strife  in  his 
bosom  between  the  humanistic  scholar  and  the  orthodox 
Christian.  More  vital  still,  at  least  after  some  pedantic 
digressions  have  been  discarded,  is  his  Secretunty  sive  de 
Contemptu  Muftdi  {iT^^2)y  where  the  conflict  in  his  mind 
between  the  sense  of  moral  obligation  and  his  passion 
for  Laura  is  so  depicted  as  to  render  him  the  prototype 
of  Rousseau,  and  entitle  us  to  derive  one  of  the  most 
characteristic  departments  of  modern  literature  from  him. 
He  is  no  less  the  father  of  modern  autobiography  by  the 
sli^^it  but  charming  sketch  he  has  left  of  himself  in  his 


>-vt^ijieiff<5i8i««faaMaiarMfMilfiaiiiigiitaii^ 


64 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE 


Epistola  adPosicros,  prefixed  to  the  general  collection  of 
his  letters.  It  was  a  .i^reat  discovery  that  the  external 
circumstances  of  a  remarkable  life  are  not  the  only  ones 

worth  relating. 

The  most  important  of  all  Petrarch's  Latin  works  is 
his  collection  of  Epistles,  partly  formed  by  himself  in  his 
lifetime,  and  greatly  enriched  by  the  diligence  of  recent 
editors,  especially  Fracassetti.      These  are  not  only  of 
high  interest  from  the  portrait  they  convey  of  the  man 
himself,  equally  as  an  individual  and  as  the  ideal  type  of 
the  man  of  letters,  but  form  a  perpetual  commentary  on 
the  manners  and  customs   of  his  age.      Many,   though 
composed   by    I'etrarch,    :ue    written    in    the    names   of 
sovereigns  or  public  bodies  ;  others  are  letters  of  t\'arm 
encouragement  or  warmer  remonstrance  to  popes,  em- 
perors and  others  who  then  seemed,  but  only  seemed, 
to  have  the  world's  destinies  in  their  liands.     In  all  his 
correspondence   with    the    great,    Petrarch,    like    Dante, 
appears    as    the    idealist,  inspu'ed  by  the    remembrance 
of  antiquity,  and  urging  upon  the  rulers  of    the  day  a 
more  exalted  course  of  acti')n  than  suited  their  disposi- 
tions, or,  it  must  be  admitted,  was  compatible  with  the 
circumstances  of  the  time.     Tliey  on  their  parts  seem  to 
have  appreciated  the  honour  of  being  lectured  by  sucli  a 
man,  and  to  Iiave  permitted  liim  to  say  wliat  he  pleased, 
satisfied  that  he  could  exert  no  practical  intiuence  upon 
the  C(Mirse  of  politics.     IVinting  and  the  liberty  of  the 
press  have    now  made   the  humblest   newspaper  scribe 
more  potent  than  the  first  man  of  letters   of  tlie  four- 
teenth   century.      Some   of    Petrarch's    epistles    are    of 
unique  interest,  sucli  as  the  description  of  his  ascent  of 
Mount  Ventoiix,  of  the  great  tempest  at  NapU's,  and    if 
the  apparition  of  the  gho-t  of  the  Pishoi)  c  1  L^iinbes,  the 


PETRARCH  AS  HUMANIST 


65 


first  circumstantial  narrative  of  the  kind,  and  perhaps  to 
this  day  the  best  authenticated. 

Petrarch's  encouragement  of  classical  study  is  not  the 
least  among  his  titles  to  fame.     He  was  the  Erasmus  of 
his  age  in  so  far  as  the  rudimentary  condition  of  criti- 
cism allowed,  and,  in  so  far  as  his  means  permitted,  its 
Mt-ecenas.      He    discovered  Cicero's  epistles  to  Atticus, 
and,  by  his  own  statement,  which  there  seems  no  suffi- 
cient reason  for  rejecting,  had  at  one  time  the  lost  treatise 
De  Gloria  in  his  hands.      He  yearned   towards    Homer 
and  Plato,  whom  he  could  not  read  in  the  original,  but 
perused    in    translations.      The    fullest    information    re- 
specting his  literary  tastes,  the  extent  of  his  library  and 
his  knowledge  of  the  classics,  his  borrowings  and  loans 
of  manuscripts,  his  copyists  and  his  bindings,   will   be 
found  in  the  excellent  monograph  of  Pierre  de  Nolhac, 
Pctrarque  et  V Humanism e   (Paris,   1892).      Many  manu- 
scripts known  to  have  belonged  to  him  still  exist,  chiefly 
in  French  public  libraries.     The  story  of  the  destruction 
of  his  books  by  the  neglect  of  the  Venetians  is  ground- 
less ;  they  ought  to  have  been  made  over  to  the  Republic 
after   his   death,  but   they  never  reached  Venice.     The 
Aldine  Italic  type  is  said  to  have  been  modelled  after 
Petrarch's  handwriting,  and  the  hrst  book  in  which  it 
was  used  was  an  edition  of  the  author  whom  he  princi- 
pally annotated,  Virgil. 


1 


LAURA  A  REAL  PERSON 


67 


CHAPTER  VI 

PETRARCH  AND  LAURA 

Petrarch's  activity  as  a  scholar  claimed  so  much 
larger  a  portion  of  his  time  and  thoughts  than  his 
Canzoniere,  and  the  bulk  of  the  latter,  considerable  as 
it  is,  is  so  small  in  comparison  with  that  of  the  mass 
of  his  writings,  that  Symonds  seems  almost  justified  in 
depreciating  his  work  as  an  Italian  lyrist  in  compari- 
son with  his  influence  as  a  humanist.  Yet  Petrarch's 
Latin  works  were  like  the  falling  rain,  which  passes 
away  as  a  distinct  existence,  though  long  invisibly  opera- 
tive as  a  fertilising  agent;  while  his  poetry,  confined 
to  a  definite  channel  by  the  restraints  of  consummate 
diction  and  style,  flows  in  a  crystal  stream  for  ever. 
Here  and  there  in  other  men's  books,  no  doubt,  an 
isolated  love-strain  of  higher  quality  may  be  found,  but 
nothing  approaching  the  Canzonicre  as  an  epitomised 
encyclopaedia  of  passion.  The  best  is  transcendently 
excellent ;  and  if  many  of  the  pieces,  especially  near 
the  beginning,  might  well  have  been  dispensed  with  as 
far  as  their  individual  desert  is  concerned,  they  still  have 
their  value  as  notes  in  a  great  harmony.  As  his  trans- 
lator Cayley  well  remarks,  '^  No  poet  has  so  fully 
represented  the  whole  world  of  love  in  every  tone 
and  variety    of    play   and    earnest,    delight    and    pain, 

66 


enthusiasm  and  self-reproach,  expostulation,  rebellion, 
submission,  adoration,  and  friendship,  or  regret  and 
religious  consolations  leading  gradually  to  another 
sphere  of  hope  and  devotion."  One  thing  only  is 
wanting  to  this  encyclopaedia  of  emotion,  the  rapture 
of  possession.  This  was  not  for  Petrarch  :  throughout 
the  first  part  he  is  the  yearning  suitor,  throughout  the 
second  the  dejected  mourner.  Hardly  another  man 
ever  sighed  or  w^ept  with  so  much  constancy  or  so 
little  recompense. 

Who  was  the  object  of  this  unique  passion  and  per- 
petual grief  ?     So  obscure   are   the   circumstances  that 
some  have  deemed  Laura,  like  the  candlemaker's  widow 
at  Pere  la  Chaise,  "  une  metaphore,  un  symbole."     Pe- 
trarch's  friend,  the    Bishop   of    Lombes,   suspected   as 
much,  but    Petrarch   indignantly  protested,  and  after  a 
while  refuted  the  surmise  by  a  manuscript  note  in  his 
Virgil,  to  be  treated  more  fully  hereafter.     Apart  from 
this,  it  seems  strange  that  scepticism  should  have  sur- 
vived his  avowal,  on  a  serious  occasion,  the  composition 
of  his  address  to  posterity  ;  where  he  speaks  of  his  affec- 
tion for  Laura  as  his  sole  incitement  to  worthy  fame, 
and  of  her  own  reputation  as  something  entirely  inde- 
pendent  of   his   praises.      "What  little    I    am,  such   as 
it  is,  I  am  through  her ;  and  if  I  have  attained  to  any 
fame  or  glory,  I  had  never  possessed  it  if  the  few  grains 
of  virtue   which   Nature  had  deposited  in  my  soul  had 
not  been  cultivated  by  her  with  such  noble  affection. 
What   else   did   I    desire   in   my   youth   than  to   please 
her,  and  her  alone,  who  alone  had  pleased  me  ?  "     The 
strongest    testimony,    however,    is    that    of    the    poems 
themselves,   which   are   full    of    traits    and   descriptions 
evidently  derived  from  real  life,  and  which  would  lose 


\ 


\ 


6S 


Iftll 


lil. 


81 


ft 

1  ! 


*l 


ITALIAN   LITERATURE 


all    their  charm   if   they  could   be  deemed   imaginary. 
Take  this  for  example  :  ^       ^ 

**As  Love  pnrstud  me  in  the  wonted  f^Iadt^ 
Wary  as  he,  who  weening  foe  tojind^ 
Guards  every  pass,  and  looks  before,  'behind, 
I  stood  in  mail  of  ancient  thought  arrayed: 
When,  sideways  turned,  I  saw  by  sudden  shade 
The  sun  impeded,  and,  on  earth  outlined 
Her  shape,  who,  if  aright  conceives  my  mind, 
Meetestfor  immortality  was  made. 
I  said  unto  my  heart,  '  Why  dost  thou  fear  V 
But  ere  my  heart  could  open  to  my  thought. 
The  beams  whereby  I  melt  shone  all  around- 
And,  as  when  flash  by  thunder-peal  is  caught,  ' 
^^y  eyes  encounter  of  those  eyes  most  dear   ' 
And  smiling  welcome  simultaneous  found.'' 

^      How  natural  and  pleasing  if  the  incident  be  real !  and 

/how  marvellous  the  poetical  power  which  can  raise  such 

an  ed^ce  out  of  such  a  trifle  I     On  the  other  hand,  how 

insipid  If  the  httle  event,  instead  of  a  ripple  on  the  sur- 

ace  of  life  arrested  by  the  poet's  art  ere  it  has  had  time 

o  pass  into  nothingness,  be  but  a  fiction  to  enable  him 

o  say  a  pretty  thing  !     The  author  of  so  frigid  a  con- 

trivance  could  never  have  been  the  author  of  the  Can^ 

zoniere. 

But  though  Laura's  actual  existence  is  certain,  her 
Identity  .s  a  subject  of  everlasting  controversy.  The 
popular  belief  near  to  Petrarch's  own  day  is  expressed 
by  an  anonymous  biographer,  who,  writing,  as  is  thought, 
TnT  K  T.  ?'  ^°"^*^^"^h  century,  calls  her  Loretta 
and,  by  adding  that  the  Pope  offered  Petrarch  a  dispen- 
sation  from  his  ecclesiastical  vows  in  order  to  marry 
her,  clearly  indicates  that  she  was  believed  to  be  a  single 
woman.     The  Abbe  de  Sade,  however,  in   his  life  of 


Y. 


IDENTITY  OF  LAURA 


69 


Petrarch,  published  in  1767,  adduces  much  documentary 
and  other  evidence  to  identify  her  with  Laura,  born  De 
Noves,  wife  of  Hugo  de  Sadc,  and  an  ancestress  of  the 
Abbe's  own.  With  one  important  exception,  to  be  men- 
tioned shortly,  the  Abbe's  proofs  are  of  little  weight ; 
they  establish  the  existence  of  a  Laura  de  Sade.  but  by 
no  means  that  she  was  Petrarch's  Laura.  An  account 
of  the  discovery  of  Laura  de  Sade's  tomb  in  1533,  authen- 
ticated by  some  very  bad  verses  attributed  to  Petrarch 
found  within  it,  although  itself  genuine,  evidently  records 
a  clumsy  fabrication. 

One  advantage  the  Abbe  s  theory  certainly  has,  the 
production  of  an  unanswerable  reason  why  Petrarch 
did  not  marry  Laura;  but,  on  the  other  hand,  his' 
ecclesiastical  orders  might  be  a  suflicicnt  impediment. 
The  Papal  dispensation  which  might  have  relieved 
him  of  them  must  surely  have  relieved  him  of  his  pre- 
ferments also  ;  and  if  the  story  is  authentic,  the  offer 
came  in  all  probability  from  Clement  VI.,  the  Pope 
by  whom  he  was  chiefly  favoured,  who  did  not  attain 
the  tiara  until  1342,  fifteen  years  after  his  first  acquaint- 
ance with  Laura,  when  Laura's  health  seems  to  have 
been  much  impaired,  and  he  may  well  have  thought  the 
time  gone  by.  The  objections  to  his  suit  having  been 
addressed  to  a  married  woman  seem  almost  insurmount- 
able. If  his  flame  was  Laura  de  Sade,  she  was  the 
mother  of  a  very  numerous  family,  and  it  appears  all 
but  incredible  that  he  should  have  inscribed  so  much 
verse  to  her  both  in  her  lifetime  and  after  her  death, 
and  discussed  his  passion  so  freely  in  his  Dialogue  with- 
out the  slightest  allusion  to  husband  or  children  ;  or 
that  the  identity  of  a  lady  holding  so  high  a  position,  and 
celebrated  in  verses  read  all  over  Italy,  should  so  long 


: 


\^ 


l» 


if 


70 


ITALIAN   LITERATURE 


^l 


:||: 


}|* 


\u 


i  t 


have  remained  obscure  ;  or  that  he  should  have  enjoyed 
such  freedom  of  access  to  her  as  he  evidently  did.  The 
idea,  moreover,  seems  quite  inconsistent  with  the  tenor 
of  the  celebrated  sonnet,  Tranquillo  porto  avea  mostrato 
A  more : 

**  Love  had  at  length  a  tranquil  port  displayed 
To  travailed  soul^  long  vexed  by  toil  and  teen^ 
In  calm  fnaiurity^  where  naked  seen 

Is  Vicey  and  Virtue  in  fair  garb  arrayed. 

Bare  to  her  eyes  my  heart  should  now  be  laid^ 
Disquieted  no  more  their  peace  serene — 
O  Death  I  what  harjicst  of  long  years  hath  been 

Ruin  by  thee  in  one  brief  moment  made  / 

The  hour  when  unreproved  I  might  invoke 
Her  chaste  eat' s  favour ^  and  disburden  there 
My  breast  of  fomb^and  ancient  thought ^  drew  nigh  : 

A  nd  she^  perchance y  considering  as  I  spoke 
Each  bloomless  face  and  either' s  silvered  hair^ 
Some  blessed  word  had  uttered  with  a  sighP 

The  thought  manifestly  is,  that  if  Laura  had  lived  a 
short  time  longer  their  intimacy  would  have  given  no 
occasion  for  scandal.  This  might  be  true  of  an  un- 
married lady  or  a  widow,  hardly  of  a  wife.  The  sonnet 
also  proves  that  Petrarch  and  Laura  were  nearly  of  an 
age,  refuting  Vellutello's  opinion  on  this  point.  Salvatore 
Betti,  moreover,  has  found  another  Laura,  fulfilling,  in  his 
estimation,  all  requisites  as  well  as  the  Abb6  de  Sade's. 

It  must,  notwithstanding,  be  acknowledged  that  there 
is  one  piece  of  documentary  evidence  almost  sufficient 
to  prove  the  Abb6's  theory  in  the  teeth  of  all  objections, 
could  we  but  be  certain  of  its  genuineness.  This  is  the 
will  of  Laura  de  Sade,  made  in  a  condition  of  extreme 
sickness  on  April  3,  1348.  We  know  on  Petrarch's  own 
authority  that  his  Laura  died  on  April  6,  for  the  genuine- 
ness of  the  note  in  his  Virgil  where  he  records  this  fact 


t'-. 


I  r 


V'" 

\ 
i  r 


'■J, 


CHARACTER  OF  FETRARCII'S  ATTACHMENT  71 

I  '  ^        ' 

is  now  regarded  as  incontestable.  That  two  ladies  of 
the  name  of  Laura  were  dying  at  or  near  Avignon  at  [ 
the  same  time  is  clearly  improbable.  But  is  the  will 
itself  authentic  ?  or  may  it  not  have  been  altered  or  in- 
terpolated ?  The  Abbe  cites  it  as  a  document  in  his 
family  archives ;  its  existence  is  attested  by  several  per- 
sons in  the  eighteenth  century  ;  but  it  does  not  appear 
to  have  been  submitted  to  the  scrutiny  of  any  expert, 
nor  can  we  learn  whether  such  an  examination  has  ever 
been  made  since,  or  whether  the  testament  is  now  pro- 
ducible.^ Should  its  authenticity  ever  be  demonstrated, 
but  hardly  otherwise,  we  shall  be  almost  compelled  to 
embrace  a  belief  liable  in  every  other  point  of  view  to 
formidable  objections. 

Although  Laura,  as  depicted  by  Petrarch,  is  the  most 
ethereal  feminine  ideal  ever  conceived,  his  passion  was 
certainly  not  of  the  Platonic  kind.  The  contrary  has 
been  asserted,  but  is  contradicted  by  every  page  of  the 
Canzom'ere,  which  is  full  of  reproaches  to  Laura  for  her 
cruelty,  incomprehensible  if  she  was  not  withholding 
very  substantial  favours.  He  certainly  did  not  want  for 
encouragements  of  a  more  spiritual  nature  : 

**  The  mist  of  pallor  in  such  beauteous  wise 
The  sweetness  of  her  smile  did  overscreen. 
That  my  thrilled  hearty  upon  my  visage  seen^ 

Sprang  to  encounter  it  in  swift  surprise. 

How  soul  by  soul  is  scanned  in  Paradise 

Then  knew  /,  unto  whom  disclosed  had  been    » 
That  thought  pathetic  by  all  gaze  unseen 

Save  mine^  who  solely  for  such  sight  have  eyes. 


>  Koerting  distinctly  affirms  that  it  is  not.  The  history  of  Carlyle  and  the 
Squire  Paj>ers  evinces  the  extreme  danger  of  touching,  tasting,  or  handling 
in  similar  cases. 


;/f'/» 


\  '' 


72  ITALIAN  LITERATURE 

All  look  anc^elicaU  all  tender  gest 

That  eer  on  man  by  grace  of  woman  beamed 
At  side  of  this  had  shown  discourtesy. 

The  gentle  visas^e,  modestly  depressed 
Earthward,  inquired  with  silence,  as  meseemed, 
*  Who  draws  my  faithful  J  riend  away  from  met''' 

Long  after  this,  which  surely  should  have  satisHed  a 
Platonic  lover,  he  is  looking  forward  to  a  more  perfect 
consummation  of  his  wishes  : 

«  Love  sends  me  messengers  of  gentle  thought^ 
Since  days  of  yore  our  trusty  go-between, 
And  comforts  me,  who  nier,  he  saiih,  have  been 
So  near  as  now  to  hop^ s  fruition  brought:' 

What  hope's  fruition  was  we  learn  from  numerous 
sonnets  composed  after  the  death  of  Laura,  in  which  the 
poet  expresses  his  thankfulness  that  his  mistress  did  not 
yield  to  his  too  ardent  entreaties,  but  kept  him  m  order 
by  her  frowns,  a  function  attributed  to  her  even  in  the 
first  book  of  sonnets  : 

«  O  happy  arts  of  excellent  effect! 

I  labouring  with  the  tongue,  she  with  the  glance^ 
Have  glory  there^  and  virtue  here  bestowedP 

Laura's  attitude  towards  Petrarch  seems  not  ill  ex- 
pressed in  the  sonnet  composed  in  the  eighteenth 
century  by  Ippolito  Pindemonte  : 

"  To  thee,  immortal  lady  lowly  laid 

Where  Sorga  glassed  thy  loveliness  divine, 
I  bow  in  worship ;  not  because  was  thine 
The  beauty  solely  for  the  coffin  made; 
But  for  the  soul  that  animating  swayed. 
And,  cold  and  colder  growing,  did  incline 
Brighter  and  brighter  yet  to  soar  and  shine 
Thy  lover's  flame  of  passion  unallayed. 


V 


LAURA  AS   MONITRESS  73 

For  certes  his  lament  had  seemed  misplaced. 
And  much  the  pathos  of  his  music  marred. 
Had  not  his  lady  been  so  very  chaste  : 

Come,  grateful  Italy,  with  fond  regard, 
To  kiss  the  tomb  by  such  a  tenant  graced, 
And  bless  the  dust  that  gave  thee  such  a  bard!^ 

This  peculiar  relation  of  Laura  to  Petrarch  as  a 
monitress,  no  less  than  an  object  of  adoration,  goes 
far  to  establish  the  reality  of  his  passion,  which  is 
exactly  that  which  men  frequently  entertain  for  women 
a  little  older  than  themselves,  and  whom  they  deem 
in  some  measure  or  some  respect  their  superiors.  He 
feels  himself  ennobled  by  his  love,  a  sentiment  ex- 
pressed with  great  force  in  the  tenth  sonnet,  one  of 
the  earliest,  and  in  many  others,  especially  the  beautiful 
Sonnet  clii. : 

"  Soul,  that  such  various  things  with  various  art 

Dost  hearken,  read,  discourse,  conceive  and  write; 

Fond  eyes,  and  thou,  keen  sense  framed  exquisite 
To  bear  her  holy  message  to  the  heart: 
Rejoice  ye  that  it  hath  not  been  your  part 

To  gain  the  road  so  hard  to  keep  aright 

Too  late  or  soon  for  beacon  of  her  light. 
Or  guidance  her  imprinted  steps  impart. 
Now  with  such  beam  and  such  direction  blest 

'  Twere  shatnefiil  in  brief  way  to  miss  the  sign 

Pointing  the  passage  to  eternal  rest. 
Upward,faint  soul,  thy  heavenward  path  incline; 

Through  clouds  of  her  sweet  wrath  pursue  thy  quest. 

Following  the  seemly  step  and  ray  divined 

We  do  not  know  w^hether  Petrarch  had  written  any 
poetry  before  he  tuned  his  lyre  to  hymn  Laura.  His 
beginnings  (the  exquisite  initial  sonnet  being  in  fact  the 
last  written  of  any)  are  at  first  feeble  and  uncertain.     It 


A«S^t\.  ^ai.>jafc.iT-<>< 


^^j^^^^Sti 


^4 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE 


is  not  until  arriving  at  Sonnet  xxii.  that  he  strikes  a  note 
worthy  of  his  mature  power,  and  he  continues  unequal 
up  to  about  Sonnet  Ix.,  when  masterpieces  begin  to  occur 
with  frequency  ;  from  this  point  onwards  the  propor- 
tion of  absohitely  insignificant  poems  is  comparatively 
small.  The  interspersed  sestines  and  ballate  add  little 
to  his  reputation  ;  not  so  the  canzoni,  which  are  among 
his  noblest  productions.  Traces  of  a  chronological 
arrangement  are  evident ;  thus  his  secession  to  the 
Sorga  gives  birth  to  a  group  of  sonnets  with  which 
those  denouncing  the  Papal  Court  at  Avignon  are  inti- 
mately connected  ;  and  in  general  the  poems  show  a 
continuous  development  of  style,  but  there  are  some 
signal  exceptions.  Towards  the  end  of  the  first  book 
his  Muse  would  seem  in  danger  of  flagging,  were  she 
not  stimulated  by  forebodings  of  the  death  of  Laura. 
The  pieces  expressing  this  apprehension  form  a  well- 
marked  group,  which  may  be  associated  with  the  doubts 
and  fears  which,  after  Laura's  decease,  he  tells  us  beset 
him  on  his  last  parting  with  her  (1347)  • 

"  The  lovely  eyes,  now  in  supernal  sphere 

Bright  with  the  light  whence  life  and  safety  rain. 

Leaving  mine  mendicant  and  mourning  here, 
Flashed  7vith  new  mood  they  seemed  to  entertain^ 

Saying  to  these :  Take  comfort,  friends  most  dear^ 
Not  here  but  elsewhere  shall  we  meet  again^ 

Mestica,  the  most  critical  of  Petrarch's  editors,  seems 
to  think  that  he  wrote  no  more  on  Laura  in  her  lifetime 
after  the  great  spiritual  change  which  he  supposes  him 
to  have  undergone  in  1343,  when  he  wrote  his  dialogue 
with  St.  Augustine.  We  see  but  slight  evidence  of  any 
such  metamorphosis. 


\ 


POEMS  ON  LAURA'S  DEATH 


75 


The  second  book  of  the  Canzoniere^  comprising  the 
pieces  composed  after  the  death  of  Laura,  resembles 
the  first  in  their  comparative  inferiority  at  the  beginning, 
after  a  fine  introductory  sonnet.  Either  Petrarch's  grief 
had  paralysed  his  powers,  or  he  had  not  fully  realised 
his  loss,  or  he  had  not  yet  hit  upon  the  fitting  tone. 
In  a  short  time,  however,  he  regains  his  true  self,  and 
the  second  part  is  generally  deemed  to  excel  the  first,  as 
pathos  excels  passion.  It  is  not  that  the  artist  is  more 
consummate,  but  the  capabilities  of  his  instrument  are 
greater.  The  poems  generally  fall  into  two  groups — 
laments  for  Laura's  loss,  or  consolation  derived  from 
the  realisation  of  her  presence  on  earth  or  in  heaven. 
An  example  of  each  must  be  given  : 

"  The  eyes  whose  praise  I  penned  with  glowing  thought^ 

And  countenance  and  limbs  and  all  fair  worth 

That  sundered  me  from  men  of  mortal  birth^ 
From  them  dissevered,  in  myself  distraught ; 
The  clustering  locks  with  golden  glory  fraught ; 

The  sudden-shining  smile,  as  angels^  mirth, 

IVonted  to  make  a  paradise  on  earth  ; 
Are  now  a  little  dust,  that  feels  not  aught. 
Still  have  I  life,  who  rail  and  rage  at  it. 

Lorn  of  Lovers  light  that  solely  life  endears; 

Mastless  before  the  hurricane  Lflit. 
Be  this  my  last  of  lays  to  mortal  ears; 

Dried  is  the  ancient  fountain  of  my  wit, 

And  all  my  music  fnelted  into  tears. ^^ 

"  Exalted  by  my  thought  to  regions  where 

I  found  whom  earthly  quest  hath  never  shown. 
Where  Lo7>e  hath  rule  Hwixt  fourth  and  second  zone; 

More  beautiful  L found  her,  less  austere. 

Clasping  my  hand,  she  said,  *  Behold  the  sphere 
Where  we  shall  dwell,  if  Wish  hath  truly  known. 
I  am,  who  wrung  from  thee  such  bitter  moan; 

Whose  sun  went  down  ere  evening  did  appear. 


-'"■■'^''■■■'•"'MhiwrM/ri'irttiriiiiiniiira'iiitf'"*"***^'-"'  It hiwii iiiHiiii iliiMtniii  •■rmriinii 


j6  ITALIAN  LITERATURE 

My  bliss^  too  high  for  jnan  to  undenitandy 

Yet  needs  thee^  and  the  veil  that  so  did  please, 
Now  unto  dust  for  briefest  season  given^ 

Why  ceased  she  speaking  f  why  withdrew  her  handf 
For,  rapt  to  ecstasy  by  words  like  these, 
Little  I  wanted  to  have  stayed  in  Heaven.^ 

This  latter  mood  is  in  general  the  more  characteristic 
of  Petrarch.  Towards  the  end  it  prevails  more  and 
more,  but  the  same  falling-off  is  observable  as  in  the 
former  book.  Petrarch's  religious  sonnets  are  exquisite 
when  they  involve  a  direct  vision  of  Laura,  but  otherwise 
they  are  apt  to  become  tame  and  conventional.  It  is 
almost  a  pity  that  the  most  notable  exception  should 
ever  have  been  written,  though  it  ranks  among  his 
masterpieces  : 

"  Ever  do  I  lament  the  days  gone  by^ 
When  adoration  of  a  mortal  thing 
Bound  7ne  to  earth,  though  gifted  with  a  wing 

That  haply  had  upraised  me  to  the  sky. 

Thou,  unto  whom  unveiled  my  errors  lie. 
Celestial,  unbeheld,  eternal  King, 
Help  to  the  frail  and  straying  spirit  bring. 

And  lack  of  grace  with  grace  of  Thine  supply. 

So  shall  the  life  in  storm  and  warfare  spent 
J n  peaceful  haven  close ;  if  here  in  vain 
Her  tarrying,  seemly  her  departure  be. 

Aid  me  to  live  the  little  life  yet  lent. 

Expiring  strength  with  Thy  strong  arm  sustain : 
Thou  knoivest  I  have  hope  in  none  but  Thee^'' 

Were  this  more  than  a  passing  mood,  it  would  be 
painful  indeed  that  Petrarch  should  have  lived  to  deem 
his  devotion  to  Laura  misspent,  and  nothing  short  of 
ludicrous  that  he  should  have  accused  himself  of  missing 
by  his  Canzonicre  the  renown  which  epics  or  tragedies 
might  have  ensured  him.     Such  a  passing  mood  it  must 


THE  TRIONFI 


77 


I 


» 


have  been,  for  it  is  contradicted  by  the  succeeding 
pieces.  The  book  concludes  with  an  impassioned  hymn 
to  the  Virgin,  which  may  have  suggested  to  Goethe  the 
analogous  conclusion  of  Faust, 

The  Canzoniere  is  completed  by  the  Trionji,  allegorical 
shows  entirely  in  the  taste  of  the  Middle  Ages,  which 
we  shall  find  repeated  in  Francesco  Colonna's  Polifilo, 
Petrarch  successively  sings  the  might  of  Love,  Chastity, 
Death,  Fame,  Time,  and  Eternity,  set  forth  in  the  long 
processions  of  their  captives  or  votaries.  A  certain  cir- 
cumscription is  essential  to  the  full  display  of  Petrarch's 
genius,  and  terza  rinia,  a  metre  favourable  to  diffuse- 
ness,  does  not  exhibit  his  powers  to  such  advantage  as 
the  severe  restriction  of  his  sonnets  and  canzoni.  The 
poem,  nevertheless,  if  a  little  garrulous,  charms  by 
deep  feeling  and  a  succession  of  delightful  if  not  trans- 
cendent beauties.  The  finest  portion  is  the  Triumph  of 
Death,  when  Laura  appears,  and  addresses  the  poet  to 
much  the  same  effect  as  in  his  sonnets  written  after  her 
decease.  "  L'on  est  vraiment  touche  de  voir  que  dans 
un  age  avance  Petrarque  ne  se  consolait  encore  de 
I'avoir  perdue  qu'en  se  rappelant  et  se  retra^ant  dans 
ses  vers  tout  ce  qui  lui  faisait  croire  que  Laura  en  effet 
I'avait  aimc"  (Ginguene).  It  was  begun  in  1357,  ^^"^  is 
not  entirely  complete,  though  Petrarch  continued  to  add 
and  retouch  until  within  a  very  short  time  of  his  death. 
The  last  lines  relate  to  Laura,  who,  present  or  absent,  is 
always  the  inspiration  of  the  poem.  Petrarch  evidently 
wrote  greatly  under  the  influence  of  his  reminiscences 
of  Dante,  and  this  may  account  for  his  unwillingness, 
frequently  attributed  to  unworthy  jealousy,  to  concern 
himself  with  his  predecessor  in  his  latter  years.  He 
knew   that   Dante's    spirit   was   more    potent  tlian   his, 


..■i:«..i>:«j>g>.^,a*ja&i'°"*^  "- '-  ■'■■*wa<i.AM..itflfaji 


78 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE 


and  feared  to  be  subjugated  by  it,  as  has  happened  to 
many.  He  has  himself  been  imitated  by  Shelley  in  the 
Triumph  of  Life, 

The  odes  with  which  the  Canzoniere  is  interspersed 
are  no  less  beautiful  than  the  sonnets,  but  are  less 
adapted  for  quotation,  since  it  is  impossible  to  give  any 
one  in  its  entirety,  and  they  must  greatly  suffer  by 
abridgment.  There  is,  however,  a  certain  completeness 
in  the  first  three  stanzas  of  ChiarCy  fresche^  e  dolci  acquCj 
excellently  translated  by  Leigh  Hunt : 

**  Clear ^fresh^  and  dulcet  streams^ 
Which  the  fair  shape  who  seems 
To  me  sole  woman^  haunted  at  noon-tide; 
Fair  bought  so  gently  fit 
il  sigh  to  think  of  it)^ 
Which  lent  a  pillow  to  her  lovely  side; 
And  turf ^  and  flowers  bright-eyed^ 
Cer  which  her  folded  gown 
Flowed  like  an  angeVs  down; 
And  you  ^  oh  holy  air  and  hushed^ 
Where  first  my  heart  at  her  sweet  glances  gushed; 
Give  ear^  give  ear  with  one  consentiftg. 
To  my  last  words,  my  lasty  and  my  lamenting. 

If  lis  my  fate  below. 

And  Heaven  will  have  it  so^ 

That  love  must  close  these  dying  eyes  in  tearSy 

May  my  poor  dust  be  laid 

In  middle  of  your  shade, 

Whilt"  my  soul  naked  mounts  to  its  own  spheres. 

The  thought  would  calm  my  fears, 

When  taking,  out  of  breath. 

The  doubtful  step  of  death; 

For  never  could  my  spirit  find 

A  stiller  port  after  the  stormy  wind, 

Nor  in  more  calm,  abstracted  bourne 

SUpJrom  my  travailed  flesh,  and  from  my  bones  outworn. 


CHARACTER  OF  PETRARCH  jg 

Perhaps,  some  future  hour, 

To  her  accustomed  bower 

Might  come  the  unta?ned,  and  yet  the  gentle  shej 

And  where  she  saw  me  first. 

Might  turn  with  eyes  athirst 

And  kinder  joy  to  look  again  for  me; 

Then,  oh,  the  charity ! 

Seeing  amid  the  stones 

The  earth  that  held  my  bones, 

A  sigh  for  very  love  at  last 

Might  ask  of  Heaven  to  pardon  me  the  past; 

And  Heaven  itself  could  not  say  nay. 

As  with  her  gentle  veil  she  wiped  the  tears  awayP 

Not  much  need  be  said  of  Petrarch's  character, 
whether  as  poet,  scholar,  or  man.  As  a  poet  he  de- 
serves to  be  numbered  among  the  few  who  have  attained 
absolute  perfection  within  a  certain  sphere  ;  to  whom 
within  these  limits  nothing  can  be  added,  though  much 
may  be  taken  away.  The  subtraction  of  the  trivial  or 
fantastic  from  Petrarch's  verse  leaves,  nevertheless,  a 
mass  of  love-poetry  transcending  in  amount  no  less  than 
in  loveliness  all  poetry  of  the  same  class  from  the  pen 
of  any  other  man.  If  immortality  is  deservedly  awarded 
to  a  single  masterpiece  like  the  Burial  of  Sir  John  Moore 
or  the  Pervigilium  Venerisy  it  should  not  be  difficult  to  esti- 
mate his  claims  whose  similar  masterpieces  are  counted  by 
scores.  Perhaps  the  greatest  of  his  beauties  is  the  com- 
plete naturalness  of  his  ceaseless  succession  of  thoughts 
transcendently  exquisite.  If  Petrarch  has  not  the  thrill- 
ing note  or  transparent  spirituality  of  Dante,  his  perfect 
form  represents  a  higher  stage  of  artistic  development — 
too  high,  indeed,  to  be  maintained  by  his  successors.  A 
just  parallel  might  be  drawn  between  the  three  great 
sonnet-writers  of  the   Latin   peoples,  Dante,  Petrarch, 


ibUMfe^ud^fedaHfiisifai]^ 


feo 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE 


COMMENTATORS  ON  PETRARCH 


8i 


Camoens  ;  the  three  orders  of  architecture,  Doric,  Ionic, 
Corinthian  ;  and  the  three  ^reat  ancient  dramatists. 

It  is  noteworthy  that  Petrarch  does  not  appear  as 
the  representative  poet  of  the  mediaeval  or  of  any  other 
period.  Horace  and  Ovid  would  have  admired  him  as 
much  as  his  contemporaries  did,  and  he  is  as  fresh  and 
bright  in  the  nineteenth  as  in  the  fourteenth  century. 
Many  have  pursued  him,  none  have  overtaken  him. 
His  prose  works,  on  the  contrary,  bear  the  stamp  of 
their  age,  and  exist  for  ours  mainly  as  curiosities  and 
documentary  illustrations  of  bygone  manners  and  ways 
of  thinking.  This  was  inevitable ;  he  could  not  have 
been  the  literary  sovereign  of  his  age  had  he  been  very 
greatly  in  advance  of  it.  He  looked  down  upon  it  suffi- 
ciently to  dislike  it,  as  he  tells  us,  and  prepare  a  better. 
As  a  man  he  had  shining  virtues  and  few  faults,  except 
such  as  are  almost  inseparable  from  the  characters  of 
poets,  orators,  and  lovers,  and  which  men  like  Dante 
only  avoid  at  the  cost  of  less  amiable  failings.  His 
nearest  parallel  is  perhaps  with  Cicero,  and  would  appear 
closer  if  Petrarch  had,  or  Cicero  had  not,  been  called 
upon  to  take  a  highly  responsible  part  in  public  affairs. 

Of  Petrarch's  vast  influence  upon  English  poetry  since 
the  time  of  Wyatt  and  Surrey,  w^ho  may  be  justly  called 
his  disciples,  it  is  needless  to  say  anything,  except  that 
it  is  even  more  to  be  traced  in  the  general  refinement  of 
diction  than  by  the  imitation  of  particular  passages. 

The  best  critical  edition  is  Mestica's,  founded  mainly 
upon  scrupulous  examination  of  a  manuscript  partly 
wTitten  by  Petrarch  himself,  partly  by  an  amanuensis 
under  his  direction.  It  may  almost  be  wished  that 
Mestica  had  not  such  good  authority  for  some  of  his 
disturbances  of  time-hallowed  readings.     By  much  the 


best  exegetical  commentary  is  Leopardi's,  a  model  of 
pregnant  conciseness,  and  invaluable  for  clearing  up 
difficulties,  although  frequently  proffering  explanation 
where  explanation  seems  needless.  The  late  Henry 
Reeve's  English  biography,  though  condensed,  is  fully 
adequate.  The  appreciation  of  the  Petrarchan  sonnet- 
forms,  never  to  be  tampered  with  without  detriment,  has 
been  mainly  promoted  in  England  by  the  late  Charles 
TomHnson. 


BOCCACCIO'S  YOUTH 


83 


CHAPTER    VII 

BOCCACCIO 

If  the  works  of  the  third  great  Itahan  writer  cannot 
be  compared  to  Dante's  for  siibHmity,  or  to  Petrarch's 
for  perfection  of  style,  the  most  important  of  them  is 
of  even  greater  significance  in  the  history  of  culture. 
By  his  Decameron  GiOVANXl  BOCCACCIO^  endowed  his 
country  with  a  classic  prose,  and  won  for  himself  a 
unique  place  as  the  first  modern  novelist. 

Boccaccio  always  speaks  of  himself  as  *'of  Certaldo," 
a  small  Tuscan  town  under  Florentine  dominion,  where 
he  possessed  some  property.  It  would  seem,  however, 
from  his  own  expressions,  not  to  have  been  his  birth- 
place. This  was  most  probably  Florence.  The  early 
legend  of  his  birth  at  Paris  rests  upon  a  too  absolute 
identification  of  himself  with  a  character  in  his  Ameto, 
His  birth  probably  took  place  in  1313  ;  and,  if  not  early 
orphaned  of  his  mother,  he  must  have  been  an  illegitimate 
child.  His  father,  a  Florentine  merchant  of  the  prudent 
and  thrifty  type,  had  him  taught  grammar  and  arithmetic, 
sent  him  into  a  counting-house  at  thirteen,  and  four 
years  afterwards  placed  him  with  a  mercantile  firm  at 
Naples.  When,  after  two  years,  the  youth's  distaste  to 
trade  proved  insuperable,  the  father  made  him  study  law 

*  When  preceded  by  the  Christian  name,  "Boccaccio"  ought,  in  strictness, 
to  lose  the  final  vowel,  but  this  would  seem  pedantic  in  English. 

S3 


at  the  Neapolitan  University.      It  is  not  likely  that  he 
gave  much  attention  to  so  dry  a  subject  amid  the  dis 
tractions   of    the   lively   city,   where   he   was   insensibly 
receiving  the  inspiration  of  his  future  poetry  and  fiction. 
Notwithstanding  the  accusation  of  stinginess  brought 
against  his  father,  Boccaccio  must  apparently  have  pos- 
sessed considerable  means,  mixing  in  the  best  society 
of  Naples.     He  probably  owed  much  to  the  Florentine 
extraction  of  Nicola  Acciajuoli,  a  leading  personage,  and 
subsequently   Grand    Seneschal   of   the    kingdom.      By 
1338  he  had  progressed  so  far  as  to  fall  in  love  with 
the   lady  he  has   celebrated   as   Fiammetta,  but  whose 
real  name  was  Maria,  putative  daughter  of  the  Count 
of  Aquino,   but  generally  believed  to  be  the  offspring 
of  King  Robert  himself.     Fiammetta  was  married.     The 
degree  in  which  she  returned  his  passion  is  uncertain, 
but  she  appears  to  have  exerted  considerable  influence 
upon  his  career  as  an  author.     He  composed  the  Filocopo 
for  her  entertainment  about  1339,  ^^d  the  close  of  his 
activity  as  an  imaginative  writer  about  twelve  years  after- 
wards coincides  with  the  probable  period  of  her  death. 
Amcto  and  Fiammetta,  in  both  of  which  she  is  celebrated 
were    written    after    Boccaccio's    return    to     Florence 
whither  he  was  recalled  by  his  unsympathising  father 
about  1340  ;  here  the  wild  oats  sown  at  Naples  came  up 
in  a  plentiful  crop  of  fiction  and  poetry.    Literary  produc- 
tions must  have  occupied  most  of  Boccaccio's  time  until 
I345»  when,  probably  on  account  of  his  father's  remar- 
riage, he  returned  to  Naples,  where  he  is  said  to  have 
begun    the    Decameron   under  the    patronage    of   Queen 
Joanna.     In  1348  the  pestilence  which  devastated  Flo- 
rence carried  off  his  father.     Boccaccio  returned  in  1349 
to   arrange   family  affairs,  and  thenceforth    appears   in 


■jf^aji^issiitimmmtitmmM 


84 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE 


/ 


THE  FILOCOPO 


quite  a  new  light,  as  a  trusty  diplomatist,  the  author  of 
various  manuals  {Genealogies  deoriim  gentilium,  De  casibus 
virorum  illustrmm,  &c.)  of  the  information  most  sought 
for  in  the  age,  and,  under  Petrarch's  direction,  a  chief 
agent  in  the  promotion  of  humanistic  studies.  Copies 
of  Terence  and  Apuleius  are  extant  in  his  handwriting. 

One  of  Boccaccio's  first  duties  after  he  had  settled 
himself  in  his  native  city  was  to  entertain  Petrarch  upon 
his  visit  in  1350,  and  one  of  his  first  public  missions, 
performed  in  the  following  year,  was  to  solicit  him  to 
fix  his  residence  at  Florence  and  enter  the  service  of 
the  Republic.  Petrarch  declined  to  entrust  his  repose 
to  so  unstable  a  community,  but  his  acquaintance  with 
Boccaccio  ripened  into  an  intimacy  which  might  have 
been  compared  to  that  of  Goethe  and  Schiller  if  Boc- 
caccio had  not  gracefully  and  judiciously  assumed  a 
tone  of  deference  to  the  acknowledged  sovereign  of 
contemporary  literature.  He  is  indefatigable  in  literary 
suit  and  service.  His  piety  towards  Dante  as  well  as 
Petrarch  leads  him  to  transcribe  for  the  latter  the  Divine 
Comedy.  His  equal  affection  for  Petrarch  and  classical 
studies  made  him  at  Petrarch's  instigation  entertain  an 
erudite  but  uncomfortable  Greek,  Leontius  Pilatus,  who 
rendered  Homer  for  him  into  very  lame  Latin  ;  but  still 
it  was  Homer  that  he  read  ;  while  the  mediaeval  epicist 
of  the  Trojan  war,  Josephus  Iscanus,  had  known  his 
theme  only  in  Dares  Phrygius  and  Dictys  Cretensis. 

Landor  has  delightfully  depicted  a  supposed  visit  of 
Petrarch  to  Boccaccio  at  Certaldo ;  one  only  regrets 
that  the  conversation  of  the  poets  should  turn  so  ex- 
clusively on  Dante.  Petrarch  rendered  his  friend  one 
inestimable  service  in  dissuading  him  from  the  renuncia- 
tion of  the  world,  into  which  he  had  been  almost  scared 


85 


by  the  prophecies  and  denunciations  of  an  expiring 
monk.  Boccaccio  nevertheless  so  far  profited  by  these 
admonitions  as  to  write  nothing  more  to  which  morality 
could  take  exception.  Shortly  before  his  end  he  received 
one  of  the  most  honourable  and  appropriate  commis- 
sions with  which  he  could  have  been  entrusted,  that  of 
delivering  public  lectures  on  Dante,  which  he  had  carried 
down  to  the  seventeenth  canto  of  the  Inferno^  when  death 
overtook  him  on  December  21,  1375. 

The  Filocopo,  Boccaccio's  first  and  longest  work  of 
fiction,  would  be  thought  Intolerably  tedious  at  the 
present  day,  when  one  must  be  indeed  ^i\okoito<;  to  get 
through  it.  It  forms  nevertheless  a  most  important  land- 
mark in  the  history  of  literature,  for  it  signalises  the 
transition  from  the  metrical  romance  to  the  pure  novel. 
Something  similar  had  been  attempted  two  centuries 
earlier  in  the  delightful  miniature  romance  of  mpiigled 
prose  and  verse,  Aucassin  and  Nicolette^  but  the  example 
had  not  been  followed.  About  the  middle  of  the  thir- 
teenth century  the  Novellino  had  been  compiled  with 
a  distinct  moral  purpose,  but  its  hundred  tales  are  rather 
anecdotes  than  novelettes.  The  Filocopo  is  founded  upon 
the  ancient  lay  of  Floris  and  Blanchefleur,  which  Boc- 
caccio has  converted  into  prose,  with  a  copious  ad- 
mixture of  new  incidents,  characters,  and  descriptions. 
There  is  little  semblance  of  probability  in  the  incidents, 
or  accurate  delineation  in  the  characters,  while  the 
diction,  though  polished,  is  full  of  what  would  now  be 
justly  considered  affectation  and  bad  taste.  In  the  four- 
teenth century  it  was  neither,  but  the  faithful  image  of 
the  mental  ferment  inevitably  produced  by  the  irruption 
of  the  classical  spirit  into  the  contracted  world  of  the 
Middle  Age.  Everything,  indeed,  was  confused  and 
7 


^•_^^.i.=^  -^  '-"■"^*'^-^'^wfci!W.rf..f<WrAhd*iihw>-»fj»rt.>*.'>  /^■aftt-.-Ji»Jlhfcrin';fcl::*>-rt 'efcr«..«.A-fcM<...--a  IS-Aa  'i 


86 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE 


bewildered ;  as  the  blind  man  suddenly  restored  to  sight 
saw  men  as  trees,  so  the  classical  forms  appeared  most 
strangely  distorted  in  the  mediaeval  atmosphere.  This 
ignorance,  which  might  have  excited  the  reprehension 
of  critics  in  Boccaccio's  age,  had  such  then  existed,  is 
the  salvation  of  his  book  in  ours  :  his  mistaken  erudition 
has  become  charming  naivete,  and  the  eloquence  which 
no  longer  impresses  at  least  amuses.  For  its  own  day 
the  Filocopo  was  an  epoch-making  work,  and  traces  of 
its  style  may  be  met  with  until  the  displacement  of  the 
ideal  romance  by  the  novel  of  manners,  a  development 
of  which  the  fourteenth  century  had  no  notion;  although 
Petronius,  as  yet  unknown,  had  given  an  example  as  early 
as  the  age  of  Nero.  Boccaccio's  affinities  are  rather  with 
Apuleius,  whom  he  frequently  follows  in  the  Decameron. 

The  Ameto  of  Boccaccio  also  possesses  considerable 
importance  in  literary  history,  being  the  first  well-defined 
modern  instance  of  an  important  genre,  the  pastoral 
romance,  afterwards  carried  to  perfection  by  Sannazaro 
and  Montemayor ;  and  also  of  a  literary  artifice,  the 
interweaving  of  several  stories  to  compose  a  whole.  The 
stories  are  not  very  attractive,  and  the  combination  is 
not  very  well  managed,  but  the  idea  was  an  important 
contribution  to  literature,  and,  though  Longus  is  more 
likely  to  find  emulators  than  Boccaccio,  the  pastoral 
romance  still  has  a  future  before  it.  The  tales  are 
supposed  to  record  the  experiences  of  shepherdesses 
who  personify  the  virtues,  and  that  placed  in  the 
fp.outh  of  Fiammetta  is  certainly  in  some  measure 
autobiographical. 

More  autobiographical  still,  and  consequently  nearer 
^o  the  truth  of  nature,  is  the  romance  called  after  Fiam- 
metta, the  precursor  of  the  modern  psychological  novel, 


THE  FIAMMETTA 


87 


I 


although  a  germ  that  long  remained  unproductive  in 
unkindly  soil.  Written,  probably,  about  1346,  it  is  half- 
way in  style  between  the  Filocopo  and  the  Decameron^  and 
the  plot  is  simplicity  itself  in  comparison  with  the  be- 
wildering intricacy  of  the  former.  It  is  merely  Fiam- 
metta's  own  detail  of  her  unfortunate  passion  for  a 
young  Tuscan,  and  her  lamentation  for  his  inconstancy 
after  his  recall  to  his  home  by  a  stern  father.  The  auto- 
biographical element  is  unquestionable,  but  it  is  ex- 
tremely unlikely  that  Boccaccio  would  have  accused 
himself  of  infidelity  in  the  person  of  Pamfilo.  It  has 
been  conjectured  to  be  the  work  of  some  anonymous 
writer  who  took  him  as  a  hero  ;  but  had  this  been  so,  the 
fact  would  assuredly  have  come  to  light.  It  is  more 
probable  that  it  represents,  not  Fiammetta's  feelings,  but 
his  own,  and  that,  to  avoid  gossip,  or  for  artistic  reasons, 
he  inverted  the  situation  and  the  characters.  Fiammetta 
undoubtedly  excites  more  interest  than  Pamfilo  could 
have  done,  and  her  sufferings  appear  in  a  more  tragic 
light  as  the  penalty  of  her  breach  of  conjugal  fidelity. 

It  may  also  well  be  the  case  that  Boccaccio,  finding 
his  affection  for  Fiammetta  on  the  wane,  anticipated 
Goethe  by  hastening  to  cleanse  his  bosom  of  the  perilous 
stuff  while  it  yet  retained  sufficient  vitality  for  the  pur- 
poses of  art.  However  this  may  be,  Fiammetta  has  the 
merits  and  defects  of  Werther,  real  pathos  and  truth  to 
nature  associated  with  the  tedium  hardly  separable  from 
a  long  monologue,  however  well  composed  ;  and  Boc- 
caccio's style  here,  although  a  great  advance  on  that  of 
the  Filocopo,  still  suffers  from  ambitious  rhetoric  and  a 
superfluity  of  adjectives.  Great  part  of  the  book,  never- 
theless, attains  the  level  of  true  eloquence ;  and  Boc- 
caccio did   much  for  prose  when  he  proved  it   to   be 


88 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE 


an  apt  medium  for  the  expression  of  passions  hereto- 
fore  chiefly  restricted  to  verse. 

His  fame,  nevertheless,  rests  on  his  Decamcro?iy  for  here 
he  attained  the  perfection  which  elsewhere  he  only  indi- 
cated.  Among  many  lights  in  which  this  epoch-making 
book  may  be  regarded  is  that  of  an  alliance  between 
the  elegant  but  superfine  literature  of  courts  and  the 
vigorous  but  homely  literature  of  the  people.  Nobles 
and  ladies,  accustomed  to  far-fetched  and  ornate  com- 
positions like  the  FilocopOy  heard  the  same  stories  which 
amused  the  common  people,  told  in  a  style  which  the 
uneducated  too  could  apprehend  and  enjoy,  but  purged 
of  all  roughness  and  vulgarity,  and,  in  truth,  such  master- 
pieces of  clear,  forcible  prose  as  the  greatest  scholars  had 
till  then  been  unable  to  produce.  All  that  we  know  of 
Boccaccio  leads  to  the  conclusion  that  his  true  mission 
was  to  have  been  a  poet  of  the  people,  such  an  one  as 
the  unknown  balladists  who  in  simple  ages  have  given 
unmortal  form  to  popular  traditions,  or  as  the  Burnses 
and  Heines  who  in  artificial  periods  have  gone  back  to 
the  fountains  of  popular  song.  Neither  of  these  was  a 
possible  part  in  the  fourteenth  century  ;  but  if  Boccaccio 
is  in  no  respect  archaic,  the  sap  of  his  best  work  is  drawn 
from  the  soil  of  popular  interest  and  sympathy. 

Few  of  the  stories  are  of  Boccaccio's  invention  ;  the 
originals  of  some  may  be  discovered  in  traditionary 
folk-lore,  of  others  in  French^  fabHaux  or  classical  or 
Oriental  writers ;  very  many  are  probably  true  histories 
in  every  respect  but  for  the  alteration  of  the  names. 
This  is  Boccaccio's  best  defence  against  the  charge  of 
licentiousness  —  he  did  not,  like  so  many  others,  write 
with  the  express  purpose  of  stimulating  the  passions, 
but  reprcduced  the  ordinary  talk  of  hours  of  relaxation, 


THE  DECAMERON 


89 


giving  it  the  attraction  of  a  pure  and  classic  style.  The 
share  of  the  ladies  as  narrators  of  or  listeners  to  these 
loose  stories,  so  repugnant  to  ideal  conceptions  of  the 
female  character,  is  not  only. explained  by  the  manners 
of  the  time,  but  has  greatly  contributed  to  the  charm  of 
his  work  by  tempering  its  licence  with  a  refinement 
best  appreciated  by  comparison  with  such  similar  col- 
lections as  the  Facetice  of  Poggio.  After  all,  the  sensuous 
element,  though  conspicuous,  is  not  predominant  in  the 
Decameron,  and  few  books  contain  more  or  finer  trails 
of  courtesy,  humanity,  and  generosity. 

Prose  fiction  had  existed  before  Boccaccio,  and  his 
manner  had  been  in  some  measure  anticipated  by  some 
of  the  tales  which  have  found  their  way  into  the  Cento 
Novelle  Antichey  but  he  was  probably  the  first  to  employ 
in  Europe  the  Oriental  device  of  setting  his  stories  in  a 
frame.  The  structure  of  the  Decameron  is  too  generally 
known  to  render  it  necessary  to  more  than  barely  men- 
tion its  scheme  as  a  succession  of  stories  told  by  ten 
persons  in  ten  successive  days,  on  the  feigned  occa- 
sion of  the  retirement  of  a  lieta  brigata  to  a  delightful 
retreat  from  the  plague  which  devastated  Florence  in 
1348.  Many  among  us  will  think  that  they  ought  to  have 
reiHained  to  aid  their  perishing  fellow-countrymen,  and, 
wiiat  is  more,  would  themselves  have  done  so.  But  it 
would  be  absurd  to  blame  the  fourteenth  century  for  a 
conception  of  public  duty  and  a  completeness  of  organi- 
sation in  public  calamity  which  did  not  and  could  not 
exist  in  it.  Media3val  Italy  produced  but  one  Florence 
Nightingale,  and  she  was  a  saint.  The  step  once  taken, 
the  exclusion  of  all  unpleasant  tidings  was  its  indispens- 
able corollary  ;  and  hence  the  scene  of  the  story-telling, 
with   its  groves   and   orchards,   gardens  and   fountains^ 


X 


90 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE 


BOCCACCIO'S  EPICS 


91 


charming  company  and  frank  conver-se,  has  ever  re- 
mained one  of  the  green  spots  on  which  imagination 
loves  to  rest. 

Such  an  ideal  of  cultivated  society  afforded  no  room 
for  the  vivacity  of  delineation  so  admirable  in  Chaucer's 
portraits  derived  from  all  classes  ;  yet  the  prologue  and 
the  little  introductory  passages  to  each  day  are,  with 
their  feeling  for  landscape  and  poetic  truth,  even  more 
delightful  than  the  stories  themselves.  If,  as  seems  pro- 
bable, some  of  these  were  composed  at  Naples  before 
the  pestilence,  this  lovely  framework  must  have  been 
an  afterthought.  Of  Boccaccio's  greatness  as  a  master 
of  narrative,  nothing  need  here  be  said,  unless  that  his 
progressiveness  is  even  more  surprising  than  his  talent. 
Ten  years  (1339-49)  had  sufficed  to  raise  him  from  the 
eloquent  but  confused  and  hyperbolical  style  of  the 
Filocopo  to  the  perfection  of  Italian  narrative.  He  was 
now  the  unapproached  model  of  later  story-tellers,  who 
can,  indeed,  produce  stronger  effects  by  the  employment 
of  stronger  means,  but  have  never  been  able  to  rival 
him  on  his  own  ground  of  easy,  unaffected  simplicity. 

Two  minor  works  of  Boccaccio,  written  subsequently 
to  the  Decameron^  deserve  a  word  of  notice — the  Cor^ 
baccio^  a  lampoon  upon  a  widow  who  had  jilted  him, 
which  does  him  no  credit  morally,  but  evinces  much 
satiric  force  ;  and  the  Urbano^  a  pretty  little  romance 
of  the  identification  of  an  emperor's  abandoned  son — • 
the  genuineness  of  which,  however,  has  sometimes  been 
doubted. 

It  was  the  constant  destiny  of  Boccaccio  to  make 
epochs—  producing  something  absolutely  or  virtually 
new,  and  tracing  out  the  ways  in  which  his  successors, 
far  as  they  might  outstrip  him,  were  bound  to  walk. 


We  have  seen  that  the  heroic,  the  pastoral,  the  familiar 
romance  owed,  if  not  their  actual  birth,  at  least  their  first 
considerable  beginnmgs  to  him  ;  and  his  activity  was  no 
less  important  in  the  domain  of  narrative  poetry.     He 
may  not  have  been  the  inventor  of  the  octave  stanza, 
but  undoubtedly  he  was  the  first  to  show  its  supreme 
fitness  for  narrative,  and  thus  mark  out  the  channel  in 
which  the  epic  genius  of   Italy  has  flowed  ever  since. 
The  peculiar  grace  of  her  language,  and  its  affluence 
of  rhymes,  adapt  it  especially  to  this  singularly  elegant, 
if  not  massive  or  sublime,  form  of  versification,  superior 
for  narrative  purposes  to  the  sinuous  and  digressive  terza 
rima,  or  to  Italian  counterfeits  of  the  majestic  blank  verse 
of  England.     It  could  not  be  expected  that  Boccaccio's 
attempts   should   at  first  display  all  the  perfection  his 
metre  is  capable  of  receiving,  he  is  undoubtedly  lax  and 
diffuse.    Yet  all  the  main  recommendations  of  the  octave 
are  discoverable  in  his  Tcseide  and  FilostratOy  poems  espe- 
cially interesting  to  English  readers  from  the  imitation 
—frequently  translation— of  them  in  Chaucer's  Knight's 
Tale  and    Troilus.      The    Tcseide   is   the   earlier,  having 
been    composed    shortly    after    Boccaccio's    return    to 
Florence  in  1340  for  the  gratification  of  his  Neapolitan 
mistress;  while  the  Filostrato,  apparently  composed  upon 
his  second  visit   to   Naples  about   1347,  is  a  disguised 
satire  upon  her  inconstancy. 

Both  from  the  acuteness  of  feeling  thus  engendered, 
and  from  the  rapid  progress  Boccaccio  had  in  the  in- 
terim made  in  the  poetic  art,  the  Filostrato  is  the  more 
powerful  and  poetical  composition  ;  the  prosperity  of 
Troilus's  love  while  returned,  for  example,  is  described 
in  the  liveliest  colours  and  with  the  truest  feeling.  The 
Tcseide,  on  the  other  hand,  has  the  advantage  of  a  more 


lldd^tbfiLJUfi^AdUfa 


I 


92 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE 


THE  AMOROSA  VISIONS 


93 


dignified  and  heroic  story,  known  to  the  English  reader. 
not  only  from  Chancer,  but  from  Dryden's  imitation 
of  the  latter  in  his  Palamon  and  Arcitc,  It  also  gave 
the  plot  to  Fletcher's  Two  Noble  Kinsmen,  Boccaccio's 
source  is  uncertain,  but  is  believed  to  have  been  some 
Greek  romance  written  under  the  later  Roman  Empire. 
If  so,  he  can  only  have  been  acquainted  with  it  in  a 
Latin  translation,  now  lost  as  well  as  the  original.  His 
own  poem  was  translated  back  into  Greek  in  a  miser- 
able Romaic  version  printed  in  1529.  For  the  tale  of 
Troiliis  and  Cressida  he  had  Guido  de  Colonna's  history 
of  the  Trojan  war,  itself  indebted  for  this  episode  to 
an  ancient  metrical  romance. 

The  little  idyllic  narrative  Ninfale  Fiesolano  is  one 
of  the  most  attractive  of  Boccaccio's  minor  writings. 
It  relates  the  breach  of  "  Diana's  law "  by  oiie  of  her 
nymphs,  and  its  tragical  consequences — the  suicide  of 
the  lover,  and  the  metamorphosis,  or  rather  the  assump- 
tion of  the  nymph  into  the  waters  of  a  river  ;  although 
the  fruit  of  their  union  survives  to  become  a  hero  and 
found  the  city  of  Fiesole.  If,  as  is  probable,  somewhat 
later  than  the  FilostratOj  this  pleasing  little  story  evinces 
Boccaccio's  increasing  mastery  of  the  octave  couplet, 
ease  of  narrative,  and  power  of  natural  description. 
Had  he  continued  to  compose  in  verse,  he  would 
probably  have  ranked  higher  among  Italian  poets  than 
he  does  now. 

The  Aniorosa  Visione  is  an  earlier  and  very  different 
work.  It  is  written  in  terrja  rima,  and  betrays  an  evident 
ambition  to  imitate  Dante,  while  in  its  turn  it  has  not 
been  without  influence  on  Petrarch's  Trionfi.  Like  the 
latter,  it  testifies  to  the  meduxval  love  of  allegories  and 
stately  shows,  and  may  well  have  aided  to  inspire  the 


I 


Polifilo  of  Francesco  Colon na.  The  poet  is  conducted 
through  a  number  of  visions  illustrative  of  the  pomps 
and  vanities  of  the  world,  and  the  poem  leaves  off  just 
as,  by  command  of  his  mistress,  he  is  about  to  attempt 
the  narrow  way  v/hich  he  should  have  taken  at  first. 
Written  apparently  for  the  entertainment  of  a  courtly 
circle,  and  encumbered  with  fantastic  acrostics,  it  reveals 
little  of  the  deep  feeling  of  its  predecessor  or  its  suc- 
cessor ;  but  if  regarded  simply  as  the  description  of  a 
series  of  pageants,  must  be  allowed  the  merits  of  fertile 
invention  and  glowing  colour.  Boccaccio's  enthusiastic 
praise  of  Dante,  whom  he  calls  the  lord  of  all  science, 
and  the  source  of  everything,  if  there  be  anything, 
excellent  in  himself,  is  highly  honourable  to  him. 

A  good  example  of  Boccaccio's  epic  vein  is  afforded 
by  the  prayer  of  Emilia  to  Diana  in  the  Teseide^  uttered 
when  Palamon  and  Arcite  are  about  to  fight  for  her 
sake.  For  this,  as  for  several  other  versions,  the  writer 
is  indebted  to  Miss  Ellen  Gierke  : 

"  She  thus  in  broke?i  vows  "'mid  st'o^hs  baran  : 
*  Chaste  Goddess^  who  dost  pui'ify  the  glades^ 

And  of  a  maiden  train  dost  lead  the  van^ 
And  him  chastises  4uho  thy  law  evades y 

As  tost  Actceon  learned  in  briefest  span, 

Who,  young  and  hapless,  smit  ^7nid  syivajt  shades^ 

Not  by  scourge  whip,  but  by  thy  wrath  celestial^ 

Fled  as  a  stag  in  transformation  bestial. 

^  Hear,  then,  my  voice,  if  worthy  of  thy  care. 

White  I  implore  by  thy  divinity. 
In  triple  fonn,  accept  my  lowly  prayer. 

And  if  it  be  an  easy  task  to  thee 
To  perfect  it — I  prithee  strii>e,  if^er 

Soft  pity  filled  thy  heart  so  cold  and  free 
For  maiden  client  who  in  'brayer  addrest  thee. 
And  who  for  grace  or  J  av  our  did  request  thce^ 


94  ITALIAN  LITERATURE 

^  For  /,  a  maiden  of  thy  maiden  irain^ 
Am  Jitter  far^  witJi  quiver  and  with  bou\ 

To  roam  the  forest^  thaii  'neath  lovJs  soft  reign 
To  do  a  husband's  will ;  and  if  thou  go 

In  memory  back^  thou  must  in  mind  retain 
How  harder  face  tiian  granite  did  we  show 

^Gainst  headlong  Venus'  law,  based  not  on  reason^ 

But  headlong  passion^  to  its  promptings  treason. 

*  And  if  it  be  my  better  fate  to  stay 

A  little  maid  amid  thy  vestal  throngs 
The  fierce  and  burningfumes  do  thou  allay 

Sprung  from  desires  so  passionate  and  strono 
Of  both  the  enamoured  youths  my  love  who  pray^ 

And  both  for  joy  of  love  from  me  do  long^ 
Let  peace  supplant  between  them  war's  contention^ 
Since  grief  to  me^  thou  know'st,  is  their  dissension, 

*  And  if  it  be  reserved  for  me  by  fate 

To  funds  law  subjected  now  to  be, 
Ah^  pardon  thou  my  lapse  from  maiden  state^ 

Nor  therefore  be  my  prayer  refused  by  thee; 
On  others*  will,  thou  seest^  condemned  to  wait^ 

My  actions  must  conform  to  their  decree : 
Then  help  nie,  Goddess,  hear  my  prayer  thus  lowly ^ 
Who  still  desen'c  thy  favour  high  and  holy,'  " 

Boccaccio  thought  little  of  his  own  poetry,  would 
have  destroyed  his  sonnets  but  for  the  remonstrances 
of  Petrarch,  and  laments  that  even  the  incitement  of 
Fiammetta  is  unavailing  to  spur  him  on  to  the  Temple 
of  Fame.  Yet  in  another  place  he  says  that  he  has 
spared  no  pains  to  jxcel  : 

"  Study  I  have  not  spared,  or  scanted  time  : 
Now  rest  unto  my  labour  1  permit, 
Lamentim:  this  so  little  could  avail 
To  raise  me  to  that  eminence  sublime'^ 

This    judgment  was   unreasonably   severe.     It   is  true, 
nevertheless,  that   Boccaccio  would   have   gained  more 


BOCCACCIO'S  MINOR  POEMS 


95 


renown  as  a  poet  if  the  taste  of  his  time  had  permitted 
him  to  seek  inspiration  among  the  people  for  his  verses, 
as  he  did  for  his  stories.  How  exquisite  he  could  some- 
times be  is  shown  by  two  of  the  sonnets  translated  by 
Rossetti— versions,  it  must  be  owned,  which  surpass  the 
originals  : 

"  Love  steered  my  course,  while  yet  the  sun  rode  high. 

On  Scyllds  waters  to  a  myrtle-grove  : 

The  heaven  was  still  and  the  sea  did  not  move  ; 
Yet  now  and  then  a  little  breeze  went  by. 
Stirring  the  tops  of  trees  against  the  sky  : 

And  then  I  heard  a  song  as  glad  as  love^ 

So  sweet  that  never  yet  the  like  thereof 
Was  heard  in  any  mortal  company. 
*  A  ny7nph,  a  goddess,  or  an  angel  sings 

Unto  herself,  within  this  chosen  place 

Of  ancient  loves,'  so  said  I  at  that  sound. 
And  there  my  lady,  'mid  the  shadowings 

Of  myrtle-trees,  bnid flowers  and  grassy  space j 

Singing  I  saw,  with  others  who  sat  round. 

By  a  clear  well,  within  a  little  field 

Full  of  green  grass  and  flowers  of  every  hue. 
Sat  three  young  girls,  relating  {as  I  knew) 

Their  loves:  and  each  had  twined  a  bough  to  shield 

Her  lovely  face;  and  the  green  leaves  did  yield 
The  golden  hair  their  shadow  ;  while  the  two 
Sweet  colours  mingled,  both  blown  lightly  through 

With  a  soft  wind  for  ever  stirred  and  stilled. 

After  a  little  while  one  of  them  said 

(/  heard  her),  'Think/  if  ere  the  next  hour  struck, 
Each  of  our  lovers  should  come  here  to- day. 

Think  you  that  we  should  fly  or  feel  afraid  ? 
To  whom  the  others  answered,  *  From  such  luck 
A  girl  would  be  a  fool  to  run  away,' " 

Apart  from  the  merits  of  his  writings,  Boccaccio  might 
rest  a  claim  to  no  ordinary  renown  as  the  creator  of 
classic   Italian  prose;    and  even    if   he  had  found  this 


96 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE 


instrument  ready  to  his  hand,  his  work  with  it  might 
alone  have  assured  him  immortality.  Perhaps  he  has  a 
still  higher  title  to  fame  in  his  quality  as  a  great  origi- 
nator, achieving,  indeed,  no  consummate  work  except  the 
Decameron^  but  reconnoitring  the  unknown  world  through 
which  the  human  spirit  travels,  and  opening  out  new 
paths  on  every  side  as  he  steers  "bound  upon  beating 
wing  to  golden  bough."  As  the  first  effective  exemplar 
of  the  heroic  and  pastoral  romance  and  of  the  epic  in 
octave  stanza,  as  the  principal  populariser  of  classical 
lore,  his  influence  will  be  felt  to  the  end  of  time.  The 
books  which  gave  him  this  power  are,  indeed,  compara- 
tively forgotten.  On  the  other  hand,  the  great  marvel  of 
his  Decameron  is  its  undying  freshness.  The  language 
is  as  terse  and  bright,  the  tale  as  readable  as  ever  :  the 
commentator  may  exercise  his  research  in  detecting  the 
sources  of  the  stories,  but  has  little  to  do  m  explaining 
obsolete  diction  or  obsolete  manners. 

In  morals  and  conduct,  until  his  latter  days,  Boccaccio 
seems  to  have  been  a  perfect  type  of  the  gay  and  easy 
class  of  Florentine  citizens,  and  as  remote  as  possible 
from  the  wary  and  penurious  burghers  depicted  in  his 
tale  of  the  Pot  of  Basil.  Apart  from  the  fair  and  cour- 
teous presence  revealed  in  the  Decameron^  his  principal 
titles  to  moral  esteem  are  his  disinterested  love  of  cul- 
ture, his  enthusiasm  for  his  master  Dante,  and  his 
obsequious  yet  graceful  demeanour  towards  Petrarch, 
embodying  sentiments  which  could  have  found  no 
entrance  into  an  ungenerous  breast. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY 

A  JUST  remark  of  Coventry  Patmore's  on  the  contrast 
between  Dante  and  Shakespeare  in  their  relation  to 
their  respective  literatures  might  be  extended  to  the 
Italian  literature  of  the  fourteenth  century  in  general  : 
it  has  lofty  peaks,  but  little  elevated  table-land.  Dante, 
Petrarch,  and  Boccaccio  tower  above  their  contempo- 
raries, who,  viewed  from  such  eminences,  are  almost 
indiscernible.  It  might  have  been  expected,  never- 
theless, that  the  example  of  surpassing  excellence,  which 
could  complain  of  no  want  of  popularity  or  recog- 
nition, would  have  powerfully  stimulated  contempo- 
raries and  successors,  and  that,  as  Homer  gave  birth  to 
the  Cyclic  poets,  and  Alcieus  followed  in  the  wake  of 
Alcman,  the  great  Italians  would  have  appeared  as  the 
immediate  progenitors  of  epicists,  lyrists,  and  novelists 
of  kindred  if  inferior  power.  On  the  contrary,  the 
century  from  the  death  of  Boccaccio  to  the  appearance 
of  Lorenzo  de'  Medici  as  a  poet  is  the  most  barren  in 
Italian  literary  history.  It  produces  no  vernacular  writer 
of  genius,  and  but  few  of  eminent  talent.  It  is  indeed 
no  reproach  to  it  to  have  brought  forth  no  second 
Dante,  or  to  have  failed,  like  all  other  ages,  to  re- 
produce the  inimitable  perfection  of  Petrarch.  But  it 
might  have  been  anticipated  that  the  new  ways  opened 

97 


1 


98 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE 


out  by  Boccaccio  alike  in  metrical  epic  and  in  prose 
narrative  would  have  been  followed  up,  and  that  history 
and  allied  branches  of  literature  would  have  assumed  a 
classic  form. 

Little  of  the  kind  occurred,  and  classical  study  itself 
ceased  to  produce  a  vivifying  effect  upon  letters.  This 
may  have  been  partly  owing  to  excessive  admiration  for 
the  ancient  writers,  degenerating  into  pedantic  imitation  ; 
partly  from  the  great  demand  for  Latin  translations 
from  the  Greek,  and  Latin  official  correspondence, 
encouraging  Latin  composition  at  the  expense  of  the 
vernacular ;  but  cannot  be  wholly  explained  by  any 
cause  peculiar  to  Italy,  for  the  same  phenomenon  mani- 
fested itself  over  Europe.  Chaucer,  who  had  carried 
the  poetry  of  England  so  high,  had  no  successors ; 
and  it  would  be  difficult  to  point  to  a  work  of  genius 
anywhere,  except  the  Imitatio  Christi^  which  might  have 
been  produced  in  any  Christian  age,  and  the  Amadis 
of  Gaulf  the  parent  of  the  romances  of  chivalry,  com- 
posed in  Portugal  or  Spain  about  the  beginning  of 
the  fifteenth  century.  How  far  this  is  to  be  ascribe  I 
to  the  Black  Death,  which,  in  sweeping  away  so  much 
of  the  existing  generation,  blighted  so  much  of  the 
hope  of  the  future  ;  how  far  to  calamities  like  the 
Great  Schism  and  the  Jacquerie  ;  how  far  to  causes 
unfathomable  by  the  human  intellect,  will  always  be  a 
question. 

Certain  it  is  that,  while  material  civilisation  continued 
to  develop,  and  Leonardo  Bruni,  thinking  only  of  the 
cultivation  of  Greek,  is  able  to  say,  **  Letters  at  this  time 
grew  mightily  in  Italy,"  creative  genius  received  a 
check ;  and  the  standard  of  public  virtue  in  most 
countries  fell  lower  than  it  had  ever  been,  or  has  been 


DIDACTIC  EPOS 


99 


again.  We  can  only  note  the  few  who  in  Italy,  other- 
wise than  as  classical  scholars,  did  anything  to  vindicate 
their  age  from  the  imputation  of  intellectual  barrenness. 
Two  didactic  poems  with  epic  affinities,  produced,  one 
shortly  before,  the  other  shortly  after  the  death  of 
Boccaccio,  attest  more  than  pages  of  panegyric  the 
powder  with  w^hich  Dante  controlled  the  imaginations 
of  his  countrymen.  Fazio  degli  Uberti,  a  Florentine 
of  w^hose  life  little  is  known,  except  that  he  spent 
most  of  it  in  exile,  and  died  about  1367,  seems  to 
have  thought  that  if  Dante  had  appropriated  heaven, 
hell,  and  purgatory,  the  earth  at  least  remained  for  him- 
self. He  undertook  to  describe,  in  a  number  of  cantos 
in  terza  rimuj  his  perlustration  of  it  under  the  escort  of 
a  singular  guide,  the  Latin  topographer  Solinus.  What 
Solinus  is  to  Virgil,  Uberti  is  to  Dante  ;  yet,  though  an 
uninspired,  he  is  not  a  contemptible  writer.  His  geo- 
graphical epic  the  Dittamondo  (Discourse  of  the  World) 
may  be  unduly  prejudiced  in  the  eyes  of  English  readers 
from  Rossetti's  rendering  of  a  canto  in  blank  verse.  It 
would  indeed  have  been  a  waste  of  time  to  have  striven 
to  reproduce  the  original  metre,  yet  Uberti's  tercets  glide 
with  an  ease  and  fluency  of  which  the  blank  verse 
gives  no  notion.  The  poem  is  not  altogether  destitute 
of  poetical  spirit ;  one  conception,  that  of  the  forlorn 
Genius  of  Rome  herself  guiding  the  poet  to  her  ruins,  is 
truly  fine,  but  force  was  w^anting  to  work  it  out.  Other- 
wise it  is  chiefly  interesting  as  a  repertory  of  the  geo- 
graphical knowledge  and  fancies  of  the  age.  The  canto 
on  England  has  been  translated  by  Rossetti,  and  is 
entertaining^  from  its  naivete.  Uberti  must  have  been 
an  accomplished  man,  for  he  intersperses  French  and 
Provencal  verses  with  his  Italian.     He  is  more  truly  a 


ICO 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE 


poet  in  his  lyrical  than  in  his  epic  performances,  if,  at 
least,  the  sonnets  and  canzoni  which  pass  under  his  name 
are  really  his.  One,  translated  by  Kossetti,  has  so  much 
poetical  merit  as  to  have  been  frequently  ascribed  to 
Dante  : 

"  /  look  at  the  crisp  golden-threaded  hair 

Whereof^  to  thrall  my  hearty  Lm^e  twists  a  net; 
Using  at  times  a  string  of  pearls  for  bait, 

And  sometimes  witJi  a  single  rose  therein, 
J  look  into  her  eyes,  which  unaware, 

Though  mine  own  eyes  to  her  heart  penetrate  j 

Their  splendour,  that  is  excellently  great. 

To  the  sun's  radiance  seeming  near  akin, 

Yet  fro  jn  herself  a  sweeter  light  to  win. 
So  that  /,  gazing  on  that  lovely  one, 

Discourse  in  this  wise  with  my  secret  thought: 

*  Woe's  me  /  why  am  I  not. 
Even  as  my  wish,  alone  with  her  alone, — 

That  hair  of  hers,  so  heavily  uplaid, 

To  shed  doivn  braid  by  braid. 
And  make  myself  two  mirrors  of  her  eyes 
Within  whose  light  all  other  glory  diesf '  " 


Another  writer  of  mark,  nearer  than  Fazio  to  Dante  both 
in  style  and  subject,  is  Frederico  Frezzi,  citizen  and 
bishop  of  Foligno,  who  died  at  the  Council  of  Constance 
in  1416.  His  Qtiatriregio,  a  moral  poem  describing  the 
author's  progress  through  the  realms  of  Love,  Pluto,  the 
Vices  and  Virtue,  so  close  an  imitation  of  Dante  as  to 
border  upon  servility,  is,  notwithstanding,  not  a  mean 
performance.  Frezzi  has  considerable  rhetorical,  if  not 
much  poetical  power,  and  many  passages  are  really  im- 
pressive. The  diction  also  is  good ;  but  the  book's  chief 
repute  at  this  day  is  among  artists,  on  account  of  the 
remarkable  designs  adorning  the  edition  of  1506,  which 


MINOR  POETS 


lOI 


present  an  affinity  to  Botticelli's  illustrations  of  Dante, 
and  have  been  attributed,  although  on  insufficient  autho- 
rity, to  Luca  Signorelli.  The  poem  was  republished  at 
Foligno  in  1725,  with  a  learned  commentary,  of  which 
it  was  in  great  need.  Matteo  Palmieki's  poem,  Citta 
di  Vita,  probably  much  in  Frezzi's  style,  arouses  interest 
from  its  having  been  suppressed  as  heretical,  but  its 
poetical  merit  has  never  yet  sufficed  to  allure  a  publisher. 
*^The  object,"  says  Symonds,  who  read  it  in  MS.,  "is 
to  show  how  free-will  is  innate  in  men."  It  is  founded 
upon  an  actual  vision,  according  to  the  assertion  of  the 
author. 

Many  other  poets  might  be  mentioned,  but  they  are 
now  mere  names,  except  Senuccio  del  Bene,  chiefly 
renowned  as  Petrarch's  friend,  but  himself  a  graceful 
writer,  and  two  of  considerably  later  date,  of  one  of  whom 
it  may  be  truly  if  paradoxically  said  that  he  is  chiefly 
remembered  for  being  forgotten.  This  is  DOMENICO 
Burchiello,  a  standing  example  of  the  fickleness  of 
popular  taste.  He  was  a  Florentine,  who  lived  from 
about  1400  to  1448,  and  composed  numerous  burlesque 
sonnets  alia  coda  (with  a  tag  of  three  lines),  which  re- 
tained sufficient  vitality  to  go  through  thirty  editions 
soon  after  the  invention  of  printing,  but  are  now  in- 
evitably neglected,  inasmuch  as  the  Florentine  slang  in 
which  they  are  mainly  composed  has  ceased  to  be 
amusing,  or  even  intelligible.  The  other  poet  of  the 
period,  GiusTO  de'  Conti,  a  jurist,  who  lived  at  the  court 
of  Sigismondo  Malatesta,  Prince  of  Rimini,  and  died 
there  about  1452,  is  remarkable  as  the  chief  contempo- 
rary imitator  of  Petrarch,  whom  he  followed  with  such 
servility  as  greatly  to  impair  the  credit  otherwise  due 

to  him  for  the  sweetness  of  his  verse  and  the  occasional 
8 


1 


I02 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE 


dignity  of  his  style.  His  collection  of  sonnets,  entitled 
La  Bella  Mano,  from  its  perpetual  reference  to  the 
beauties  of  his  lady's  hand,  stands  out  at  all  events,  as 
even  an  inferior  work  might  have  done,  from  the  almost 
total  poetical  barrenness  of  the  middle  of  the  fifteenth 
century,  otherwise  only  relieved  by  the  elegant  sonnets 
of  another  Petrarchist,  Bonaccorso  da  Montemagno,  and 
the  popular  carols  which  gained  Leonardo  Giustiniani 
deserved  reputation. 

More  genuine  poetry  is  to  be  found  in  the  occasional 
lyrics  of  two  writers  near  the  end  of  the  fourteenth 
century,  chiefly  eminent  in  a  different  species  of  compo- 
sition, the  novelette.  Franco  Sacchetti  and  Giovanni 
FiOKENTiNO  are  artists  in  words,  and  men  of  true  poetic 
feeling.  A  canzonet  of  Sacchetti's  (the  earliest  Italian 
poet,  says  Rossetti,  with  whom  playfulness  was  a  char- 
acteristic), O  vaghe  montanine  pastorelky  w^as  so  popular 
as  to  have  been  transmitted  for  some  generations  by 
oral  recitation,  while  his  novelettes,  until  printed  in  the 
eighteenth  century,  existed  only  in  a  single  mutilated 
manuscript.  This  is  the  conclusion  of  Rossetti's  transla- 
tion of  this  charming  lyric  : 

"  *  /  think  your  beauties  might  make  great  complaint 
Of  being  thus  shown  ei/er  mount  ami  dell ; 
Because  no  city  is  so  excellent 

But  that  your  stay  therein  were  honourable. 
In  very  truth  noi.u  does  it  like  you  well 
To  live  so  poorly  on  the  hill-side  here  ? ' 

*  Better  it  liketh  one  of  us,  pardiCj 

Behind  her  flock  to  seek  the  pasture- stance^ 

Far  better  than  it  liketh  one  of  ye 

To  ride  unto  your  curtained  rooms  and  dance. 
We  seek  no  riches,  neither  golden  chance^ 

Save  wealth  of  flowers  to  weave  into  our  natr: 


SACCHETTI  AND  GIOVANNI   FIORENTINO   103 

^Ballad,  if  I  were  now  as  once  I  waSy 
Pd  make  itiyself  a  shepherd  on  some  hill, 

And,  without  tellim^  any  one,  would  pass 

Where  these  girls  went,  andfolloiu  at  their  will^ 
And  "  Mary"  and  "  Martin"  we  would  murmur  stilly 

And  I  would  be  for  ever  where  they  were  J  " 


This  exquisite  poem,  however,  rather  belongs  to  the 
late  fourteenth  than  to  the  early  fifteenth  century,  as  do 
other  songs  of  equal  beauty  by  Sacchetti  and  his  contem- 
poraries, which  contrast  favourably  with  earlier  Italian 
lyrics  by  their  brevity  and  simplicity.  This  is  partly 
attributable  to  their  having  been  in  general  written  for 
music.  Some  of  the  most  charming  examples  have  been 
collected  in  Carducci's  Studi  Letterari, 

Sacchetti  and  Giovanni  mark  the  termination  of  the 
Trecentisti  period.  Many  writings  of  their  contemporaries 
have  been  printed  as  models  of  pure  diction,  but  are  other- 
wise too  unimportant  to  deserve  independent  notice  in  a 
literary  history.^  After  the  beginning  of  the  fifteenth 
century  Italian  prose  for  a  while  declined,  mainly  from 
the  false  standard  of  excellence  produced  by  exaggerated 
enthusiasm  for  the  newly  recovered  classics.  Neglecting 
the  spirit,  though  only  too  attentive  to  the  letter,  of  these 
models,  writers  corrupted  their  diction  with  Latinisms. 
The  best  books  were  histories,  and  the  best  of  these  w^ere 
written  in  Latin.  It  might  have  been  said  that  to  find  a 
really  good  vernacular  historian  we  must  go  back  to  the 
fourteenth  century,  were  it  not  for  the  doubts  which 
beset  the  alleged  chronicle  of  DiNO  Compagni,  which 
professedly  details  events  at  Florence  from  1286  to  1318. 
The  question  of  its  genuineness  has  aroused  the  sharpest 

*  Many  will  be  found  in  a  collection  unfortunately  published  on  too  limited 
a  scale  to  be  generally  accessible,  Daelli's  Biblioteca  Kara, 


104 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE 


i 


controversy,  which  cannot  be  regarded  as  even  yet 
absohitely  determined  :  the  prevailing  opinion,  however, 
seems  to  be  that  it  is  a  fabrication  dating  from  about 
1450.  It  is  so  entertaining  that  one  would  wish  it  trust- 
worthy. 

GiNO  Capponi,  a  leading  Florentine  citizen  of  the 
latter  fourteenth  and  earlier  fifteenth  century,  has  left 
valuable  memoirs  of  some  of  the  transactions  in  wiiich 
he  w^as  engaged.  The  great  Florentine  historian  of 
the  age,  however,  is  GiOVANNi  ViLLANi,  a  characteristic 
embodiment  of  all  the  better  qualities  of  his  city,  who, 
inspired  by  ardent  patriotism,  wTote  its  history,  including 
a  review  of  the  contemporary  transactions  of  the  world, 
from  the  Tower  of  Babel  to  1346,  on  the  verge  of  the 
Black  Death  of  1348,  by  which  he  was  himself  carried 
off.  His  work  was  continued  by  his  brother  Matteo  and 
his  nephew  Filippo  to  1368.  Villani  possessed  every 
qualification  which  experience  of  public  business  could 
afford,  having  filled  several  important  offices,  among 
them  those  of  Prior  and  Master  of  the  Mint.  His 
language  is  exceedingly  pure,  his  fidelity  and  impartiality 
are  beyond  suspicion,  and  he  is  peculiarly  valuable  from 
his  preservation  of  financial  and  economical  details,  and 
other  matters  affecting  ordinary  life.  He  would  have 
been  a  model  historian  if  he  had  lived  when  the  spirit  of 
critical  inquiry  was  awake,  and  historians  had  learned 
the  delineation  of  character  and  the  artistic  construction 
of  narrative  ;  he  must,  how^ever,  in  this  case  have  forfeited 
the  golden  simplicity  which  renders  his  narrative  so 
delightful.  His  nephew  Filippo,  who  lived  far  into  the 
fifteenth  century,  wrote  in  Latin  the  Lives  of  Illustrious 
Florentines,  already  cited  as  an  authority  on  Dante.  His 
memoir  of  Boccaccio  has  been  frequently  reprinted. 


iENEAS   SYLVIUS 


105 


I 


No  place  having  hitherto  occurred  suitable  for  mention 
of  the  Travels  of  Mareo  Polo,  they,  although  belonging 
to  the  thirteenth  century,  may  find  mention  here.  From 
the  purely  literary  point  of  view  they  are  of  no  great 
importance,  but  as  the  first  book  that  opened  the  know- 
ledge of  the  East  to  Europeans,  their  significance  cannot 
be  overrated.  Mention  should  also  be  made  of  another 
traveller,  Ciriaco  di  Ancona,  the  first  archaeologist, 
who,  in  the  second  quarter  of  the  fifteenth  century,  set 
the  example  of  collecting  inscriptions  and  w^orks  of 
antiquity. 

The  next  prose  author  whom  it  is  necessary  to  mention, 
Enea  Silvio  Piccolomini,  afterw^ards  Pope  Pius  the 
Second  (1405-64),  WTiting  solely  in  Latin,  has  no  place  in 
the  literary  history  of  the  Italian  language,  but  is  perhaps 
the  most  typical  example  of  the  fifteenth-century  man 
of  letters,  accomplished,  versatile,  adroit,  imperfectly 
restrained  by  principle,  but  inspired  by  a  genuine  zeal 
for  culture  and  humanity.  No  literary  personage  since 
Petrarch  had  displayed  such  various  activity,  or,  by  his 
controversial,  no  less  than  by  his  diplomatic  ability,  had 
exerted  an  equal  influence  in  the  affairs  of  Church  and 
State.  Apart  from  the  substantial  merits  of  his  w-ritings, 
^neas  is  a  typical  figure  as  indicating  that  the  pen  w^as 
beginning  to  govern  the  world,  and  that  literary  dexterity 
could  make  a  Pope  of  a  struggling  adventurer.  As  an 
author  he  has  come  down  to  our  day  by  his  Commen- 
taries of  his  own  times,  one  of  that  valuable  class  of 
histories  whose  authors  can  say,  *'  Pars  magna  fui " ;  and 
by  his  Euryalus  and  Liurctia,  a  romance  founded  on  an 
actual  occurrence,  and  noteworthy  as  a  precursor  of  the 
modern  novel.  \ 

In  Leone  Battista  Alberti  (1404-72)  we  at  length' 


it:^  -ItJiMateiit'.lliiif  i^jtAjJJnliMijW-iiijAgr  ~'-'  ■  -  -  -^-jMjlJgiMMBa 


io6 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE 


encounter  a  humanist  accomplished  alike  in  the  learned 
and  the  vulgar  tongue ;  while,  like  Leonardo  da  Vinci, 
to  whom  he  offers  a  strong  resemblance,  less  remarkable 
for  any  particular  work  than  for  the  universality  of  his 
genius.  An  architect  and  mathematician,  an  engineer 
and  the  inventor  of  the  camera  obscura,  he  was  almost 
the  first  of  the  moderns  to  treat  these  subjects  scien- 
tifically, and  extended  his  researches  to  painting  and 
sculpture.  His  literary  celebrity,  however,  arises  rather 
from  his  treatise  Delia  Famiglia^  a  model  of  practical 
wisdom,  couched  in  the  clear  and  cheerful  spirit  of  a 
Goethe,  and  affording  a  pleasing  insight  into  the  Italian 
family  life  of  the  period,  as  yet  unspoiled  by  luxury. 
"What  he  says  about  the  beauty  of  the  body  is  worthy 
of  a  Greek,  what  he  says  about  exercise  might  have  been 
written  by  an  Englishman"  (Symonds).  The  third 
book,  superior  to  the  others  in  diction,  has  been  attri- 
buted to  Agnolo  Pandolfini,  a  distinguished  Florentine 
statesman  of  an  earlier  date,  but  Alberti's  claim  to  it 
seems  satisfactorily  established.  His  Iciarchia,  a  treatise 
on  the  ideal  prince,  is  also  a  remarkable  work  ;  and  his 
novelette,  Ippolito  and  Leonora^  founded  on  a  Florentine 
tradition,  is  distinguished  by  pathos  and  simplicity. 
Albert!  was  the  natural  son  of  a  Florentine  exile,  and 
was  born  at  Genoa.  His  early  years  were  years  of  hard- 
ship. Restored  to  his  ancestral  city,  he  there  executed 
important  architectural  and  engineering  works,  and  sub- 
sequently metamorphosed  into  a  splendid  temple  the  old 
church  at  Rimini,  which  Sigismondo  Malatesta  dedicated 
in  its  altered  form  to  the  memory  of  his  mistress  Isotta. 
He  was  afterwards  abhreviator  of  Papal  briefs  at  Rome 
Deprived  of  this  office,  along  with  sixty-nine  other  emi- 
nent scholars,  by  the  Philistine  but  practical  Pope  Paul 


BISTICCI— PONTANO 


107 


II.,  he  devoted  himself  to  architecture  at  Florence  and 
Mantua,  and  died  at  Rome  in  1472. 

The  excellent  Vespasiano  da  Bisticci  (1421-98),  almost 
alone  among  his  literary  contemporaries,  followed  a 
trade,  being  a  bookseller  at  Florence.  He  formed  the 
great  library  of  the  first  Duke  of  Urbino,  and  has  left 
particulars  of  his  zeal  in  the  preparation  of  illuminated 
manuscripts,  and  a  vigorous  expression  of  his  disesteem 
for  printed  books  in  comparison  with  them.  We  are 
indebted  to  him  for  no  few^er  than  105  biographies  of 
contemporaries,  most  of  whom  were  personally  known 
to  him.  A  few,  of  considerable  length  and  elaboration, 
record  the  lives  of  popes,  kings,  and  cardinals  ;  the  great 
majority  are  brief  and  simple  notices  of  scholars  and 
literary  men,  some  of  whom,  but  for  Bisticci,  would  be 
almost  unknown.  All  are  charming  from  their  unaffected 
simplicity  and  geniality,  and  the  curious  traits  of  the  age 
which  they  preserve. 

Had  Giovanni  Pontano  (1426-1503)  written  in  the 
vernacular,  he  would  have  won  a  place  equal  to  any 
contemporary's  as  a  poet,  and  a  place  among  prose- 
writers  entirely  his  own.  Though  a  statesman  and 
diplomatist,  the  confidant  of  the  King  of  Naples,  a  philo- 
logist beside,  and  the  life  and  soul  of  the  Neapolitan 
Academy,  he  is  none  the  less  the  Lucian  and  the  Martial 
of  his  age  ;  the  lively  satirist  and  delineator  of  popular 
manners  in  his  dialogues ;  in  his  verse  a  genuine  lyrist, 
careful  of  form  as  a  Greek,  animated  and  eager  as  if  he 
had  been  a  born  Neapolitan.  His  prose  and  verse  pal- 
pitate with  feeling  and  he  gains  life  at  the  expense  of 
Latinity.  His  historical  writings,  though  respectable,  are 
of  less  mark  ;  but  as  a  popular  poet  and  satirist,  Italian 
speech  had  an   infinite  loss  in  him.     Even  as  it  is,  he 


io8 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE 


seems  but  one  remove  from  a  vernacular  author.  His 
dialoi^ues  had  probably  much  influence  upon  Erasmus. 
Another  contemporary  figure  is  strange  and  enigmatical. 
We  know  but  imperfectly  who  FRANCESCO  Colonna, 
the  author  of  the  Hypnerotoniachia  Poliphiliy  was,  and 
can  only  guess  why  he  composed  his  visionary  romance 
in  a  macaronic  jargon  neither  Latin  nor  Italian.  The 
book  describes  a  vision  in  which  I^olifilo,  after  view- 
ing magnihcent  processions  and  going  through  various 
adventures,  ultimately  obtains  the  hand  of  his  lady, 
Folia,  who  has  been  identified  with  Lucrezia  Lello, 
daughter  of  a  jurisconsult  at  Treviso.  It  is  barely 
readable,  and  yet  its  very  inarticulateness  gives  it  a 
charm  which  it  would  not  have  possessed  if  the  author 
had  been  another  Boccaccio.  The  soul  of  the  Renais- 
sance seems  to  have  passed  into  it,  and  to  be  dumbly 
yearning  for  a  manifestation  never  found,  "moving 
apart  in  worlds  not  realised."  The  impression  is  greatly 
assisted  by  the  unique  illustrations  to  which  it  owes  its 
preciousness  in  artistic  eyes,  and  whose  origin  is  still 
an  unsolved  problem.  Their  lavish  fancy  and  skill  in 
rendering  every  variety  of  expression  by  mere  outline 
are  apparent  to  all  ;  but  behind  these  technical  qualities 
lies  the  suggestion  of  a  romantic  and  far-away  world, 
comparable  to  the  Hades  adumbrated  in  the  tender  fare- 
wells on  Greek  sepulchral  reliefs. 

On  the  whole  the  literary  harvest  of  the  century  follow- 
ing the  death  of  Petrarch  was  poor,  and  the  seed  dispersed 
by  him  and  Boccaccio  seemed  to  have  fallen  upon  barren 
ground.  It  was  not,  however,  entirely  thus  :  some  of 
the  Latin  poets,  such  as  Baptista  IVIantuanus,  Campanus, 
Augurellus,  whom  we  have  been  compelled  to  pass 
without  special  notice,  might  have  won  durable  renown 


j 


FIFTEENTH-CENTURY  CHARACTERISTICS      109 

if  they  had  written  in  Italian  ;  and  though  there  is  little 
achievement  in  vernacular  literature,  several  branches 
of  human  activity  are  for  the  first  time  in  modern 
Europe  brought  under  literary  influence.  The  dearth 
of  literary  genius  was  paralleled  by  an  equal  paucity  of 
statesmen  and  warriors  of  real  greatness,  though  a  Ziska 
or  a  Sforza  appears  here  and  there.  Some  mysterious 
cause  had  depressed  the  intellectual  vitality  of  the  age, 
which,  nevertheless,  continued  to  progress  in  social  re- 
finement and  in  opulence.  Its  aesthetic  sensitiveness 
was  chiefly  expressed  in  the  rapid  development  of  pic- 
torial and  plastic  art,  and  the  renovation  of  architecture  ; 
its  literary  ideal  was  mainly  manifested  by  the  philo- 
logical and  critical  apostles  of  the  Renaissance,  a  re- 
markable band,  who  must  find  place  in  another  chapter. 
As  was  to  be  expected  under  such  circumstances,  one 
of  the  features  of  the  time  was  the  improvement  of  the 
old  universities  and  the  formation  of  private  societies  of 
scholars,  which  expressed  Italian  intellectual  needs  as 
clearly  as  the  foundation  of  the  Royal  Society  expressed 
English  needs  at  a  later  date.  Two  achieved  special 
celebrity  —  the  Roman  Academy,  persecuted  by  Pope 
Paul  II.  for  its  relapse  into  paganism,  and  the  Platonic 
Academy  at  Florence,  cherished  by  the  Medici.  It  fell 
to  the  lot  of  the  latter  to  solemnly  decide,  under  the 
auspices  of  Lorenzo  de'  Medici,  that  the  Italian  language 
actually  was  on  a  par  with  the  Latin,  and  that  a  man 
of  wit  or  learning  need  not  fear  to  lose  caste  by  writing 
in  it. 


THE  HUMANISTS 


III 


CHAPTER  IX 

THE   POETICAL    RENAISSANCE    OF    THE 
FIFTEENTH   CENTURY 

In  characterising:^  the  original  authors,  apart  from  critics 
and  commentators,  whom  Italy  produced  during  the  lirst 
half  of  the  fifteenth  century,  we  have  omitted  the  men 
who  really  exerted  the  most  important  influence  upon 
literature.  These  form  a  group  by  themselves — not  one 
of  Italian  authors,  for  they  rarely  wrote  in  the  vernacular; 
scarcely  one  of  authors  at  all,  for  they  worked  chiefly  as 
philologers.  They  are,  however,  much  too  important  to 
be  passed  over  without  notice,  representing  as  they  did 
the  Renaissance  in  its  aspect  as  the  rebirth  of  free 
thought  and  inquiry,  a  resurrection  no  less  momentous 
than  the  revival  of  art  and  letters,  and  preparing  the  lite- 
rary development  which  they  were  unable  to  effect.  F'ew 
of  them  were  men  of  extraordinary  mental  power,  but  all 
were  passionate  for  the  study  of  antiquity,  and  while, 
perhaps,  intending  to  restore  Latin  to  its  rank  as  the  sole 
literary  language,  set  forces  at  work  which  deprived  it  of 
this  primacy  for  ever.  Even  though  Lorenzo  de'  Medici 
might  apologise  for  writing  in  a  language  condemned  by 
men  of  good  judgment,  and  Varchi's  schoolmaster  might 
punish  him  for  readini^  Petrarch,  when  men  like  Alberti 
took  to  cultivating  the  vernacular  speech  in  emulation  of 


liu 


the  Latin,  it  was  clear  that  the  latter  had  already  lost  its 
monopoly. 

The  humanists  had  nevertheless  in  their  own  domain 
the  great  advantage  of  being  first  in  the  field.      They 
could  hardly  advance  in  any  direction  without  initiating 
some  movement  momentous  in  its  effect  upon  culture. 
Emanuel  Chrysoloras  brought  the  Greek   language   to 
Florence  ;  his  son-in-law,  Filelfo,  voyaged  to  Constan- 
tinople,   and   returned   with  a  Greek   library.      Poggio 
Bracciolini,  a  most  elegant  Latinist  and  epistolographer 
— unfortunately  best  remembered  by  his  virulent  invec- 
tives, and  by  a  book  of  facetiae  which  does  more  credit 
to  his  gaiety  than  to  his  morals— rendered  the  greatest 
service  by  his  assiduity  in  the  collection  of  manuscripts. 
Leonardo  Bruni  accomplished  even  more  by  the  simple 
step  of  making  accurate  translations  of  Plato  and  Aris- 
totle, and  thus  delivering  Western  science  from  bond- 
age to  the  Arabians,  through  whose  paraphrases  these 
writings   had   hitherto   been   chiefly   known.      Lorenzo 
Valla,  an  acute  and  intrepid  critic  and  original  thinker, 
enthusiastic  for  truth  in  the  abstract,  but  not  generally 
actuated  by  high  principle,  became  the  father  of  modern 
negative  criticism  by  his  overthrow  of  the  scandalous  Papal 
imposture  of  the   Donation  of  Constantine.     Gemistus 
Pletho,  though  a  visionary,  introduced  Plato  to  Italy,  and 
powerfully  stimulated  thought  through  the  controversies 
aroused  by  his  writings.      Flavio  Biondo  was  the  first 
scientific   archaeologist,   describing    the    monuments    of 
pagan  and  Christian  Rome,  and  investigating  the  topo- 
graphy of   ancient  Italy.     Vittorino   da  Feltre  showed 
practically  by  his  school  at  Mantua  what  education  ought 
to  be,  and  Vespasiano  da  Bisticci  WTote  the  lives  of  his 
fellows.     Even  men  like  Filelfo,  whose  restless  pens  pro- 


112 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE 


LORENZO  DE'   MEDICI 


duced  no  work  of  real  importance,  kept  the  int;:;llcctiial 
life  alert  by  their  incess:int  activity.  For  the  time  the 
age  found  what  it  needed  in  such  men,  and  scholars 
enjoyed  the  consideration  aw^arded  to  poets  under 
Augustus,  rhetoricians  in  the  later  Roman  Empire, 
jurists  under  Justinian,  and  the  founders  of  religious 
orders  in  the  days  of  St.  Dominic  and  St.  Francis. 

The  deference  shown  to  scholars  is  sufficiently  attested 
by  the  honourable  offices  conferred  upon  them,  the  com- 
petition of  princes  and  republics  to  obtain  the  most 
distinguished  Latinists  for  their  secretaries,  and  the 
throngs  that  attended  their  lectures  and  other  public 
displays,  vapid  and  empty  as  these  frequently  appear  to 
us.  The  prevailing  current  of  taste  proved  highly  advan- 
tageous in  raising  the  standard  df  university  education. 
Bologna,  in  a  former  age  the  herald  of  Italian  academic 
culture,  latterly  in  a  condition  of  decay,  revived  and 
asserted  her  supremacy,  and  her  sister  seats  of  learning 
competed  vigorously  with  her  and  each  other.  The 
triumph  of  humanism  seemed  complete  when  in  1447 
erudition  made  a  Pope  in  the  person  of  Nicholas  V.,  the 
founder  of  the  Vatican  Library,  whose  love  of  erudition 
was  such  that  it  absolved  in  liis  eyes  even  Lorenzo  Valla's 
exposure  of  pious  frauds.  Two  great  events  favourable 
to  culture  succeeded — the  fall  of  Constantinople,  which 
brought  a  fresh  flight  of  learned  Greeks  into  Europe  ; 
and  the  invention  of  printing,  of  which,  however,  Italy 
did  not  reap  the  benefit  until  1464.  The  tardiness  of 
so  simple  au  invention,  upon  the  verge  of  which  anti- 
quity had  continually  been  hovering,  is  one  of  the  most 
surprising  facts  in  the  history  of  the  human  mind  ;  the 
indifference  with  which  it  was  at  first  received  is  hardly 
less  so  ;  and  the  stimulus  it  imparted  to  literature  long 


113 


f 


fell  below  reasonable  expectation.  It  is  remarkable,  how- 
ever, that  two  complete  versions  of  the  Bible  appeared  at 
Venice  in  147 1,  and  significant  that  no  vernacular  Bible 
was  allowed  to  lie  printed  anywhere  else.  The  general 
character  of  the  productions  of  the  Italian  press  is  dis- 
tinctly academical  and  utilitarian.  Classics  and  classical 
commentaries,  theology,  canon  and  civil  law,  medicine, 
form  the  staple  ;  imaginative  vernacular  literature,  even 
of  the  past,  is  scanty ;  contemporary  literature  might 
hardly  have  existed  so  far  as  the  early  records  of  the 
press  indicate.  Apart  from  the  studies  which  conduced 
to  a  livelihood,  the  period  all  over  Europe  was  one  of 
intellectual  barrenness.  But  young  men  of  lively  genius 
were  growing  up,  and  one  of  these  was  in  a  position  to 
be  as  serviceable  to  modern  belles-lettres  as  Nicholas  V. 
had  been  to  the  study  of  antiquity. 

It  rarely  happens  that  Augustus  is  also  Virgil ;  enough 
if  he  is  also  Maecenas.  Lorenzo  de'  Medici  (1448-92) 
united  all  these  characters.  A  prince  by  position  if  not 
by  descent,  he  w^as  not  only  a  patron  of  literature,  but  a 
highly  intelligent  and  discriminating  patron  ;  nor  only  a 
favourer,  but  himself  the  producer  of  some  of  the  best 
literature  of  his  day.  In  character,  in  circumstances,  in 
the  bent  of  his  policy  and  the  general  result  of  his 
activity,  he  might  not  unfairly  be  termed  a  miniature 
Augustus ;  like  him  he  confiscated  the  liberties  of  his 
country  as  the  sole  alternative  to  anarchy,  and  repaid 
her  by  prosperity  and  peace.  All  the  great  qualities  of 
Augustus  were  his,  and  few  of  the  defects  which  history 
chiefly  censures  in  his  prototype.  Both  were  stronger 
in  the  self-regarding  than  in  the  self-forgetting  virtues, 
but  Lorenzo  once  rose  to  heroism.  History  records  no 
action  of  Augustus  comparable  to  Lorenzo's  placing  him- 


ailfe1>Urf.W^*MM.JttgfLja'.JI»^lEa>MtflSaiuifc'j4'*^.jy  *-><.j 


114 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE 


self  in  the  power  of  the  treacherous  and  unscrupulous 
King  of  Naples  for  the  sake  of  his  country.  Nor 
had  Lorenzo,  like  Augustus,  ever  occasion  to  pass  the 
sponge  over  an  abortive  tragedy.  His  compositions  are 
of  different  degrees  of  merit,  but  all  are  fluent  and 
graceful. 

We  have  entered  a  different  period  from  that  of  the 
Uberti  and  Frezzi ;  the  tree  of  poetry,  so  long  stiff  jand 
dry,  now  swells  with  sap,  and  buds  with  the  prophecy  of 
a  coming  summer-.     Two  distinct  impulses  are  observable 
in  Lorenzo  and  his  literary  mate,  Politian  :  in  one  point  of 
view  the  artistic,  in  the  other  the  poetical  spirit  predomi- 
nates.   As  artists,  they  strove  successfully  to  attain  perfect 
elegance  of  expression,  and  to  improve  the  metrical  forms 
which  had  descended  from  the  fourteenth  century.     As 
poets,  they  seized  upon  the  songs  and  catches  current  in 
the  mouths  of  the  people,  and  elevated  them  by  judicious 
treatment  into  the  region  of  art.     This  could  be  possible 
only  to  men  of  great  poetic  sensitiveness.     Had  Lorenzo 
and  Politian  been  less  refined  by  culture,  had  the  one 
been  no  scholar  and  the  other  no  prince,  either  might 
have  been  an  Italian  Burns  ;  as  it  is,  their  work  as  lyric 
poets   is   more   nearly  comparable  to  Goethe's.     They 
made  the  popular  Muse  acceptable  to  men  of  breeding, 
while  gratifying  their  own  tastes  by  work  marked  with 
the  stamp  of  study  and  erudition,  and  yet  not  beyond  the 
intelligence  of  the  average  educated  man. 

Lorenzo's  part  as  the  patron  of  art  and  letters  is  so 
considerable,  that  his  writings,  important  as  they  are, 
appear  almost  insignificant  in  comparison.  The  most 
elaborate  of  his  poems  might  be  classed  as  idylls.  They 
comprise  the  Ambra,  a  graceful  and  fanciful  Ovidian 
allegory  on  the  metamorphosis  of  the  nymph  Ambra  into 


LORENZO'S  LOVE  POEMS  115 

a  rock  to  escape  the  pursuit  of  a  river-god ;  Lc  Caccia 
col  Falcone,  a  lively  description  of  this  aristocratic  sport ; 
and  La  Ncncia  di  Barberino,  no  less  vivid  in  its  portraiture 
of  the  humours  of  plebeian  love-making.  Lorenzo's  own 
love  poetry  consists  chiefly  of  canzoni,  more  remarkable 
for  elegance  than  depth  of  feeling,  but  perfectly  in  the 
character  of  a  man  of  pleasure  who  is  also  a  refined 
gentleman.  The  spirituality  of  Dante  and  his  contempo- 
raries, the  romantic  passion  of  Petrarch,  no  longer  suited 
the  age.  The  temple  of  Love,  like  the  temple  of  the 
Church,  had  been  secularised  ;  in  everything  men  habitu- 
ally lived  at  a  lower  level.  Yet  this  declension  is  com- 
pensated  in  a  great  degree  by  the  enhanced  feeling  of 
reality  :  there  can  be  no  such  controversy  over  Lorenzo's 
innamorata  as  over  Beatrice  and  Laura.  The  following 
is  a  fair  example  of  his  erotic  style  : 

"  Thy  beauty,  gentle  Violet,  was  born 

Where  for  the  look  0/  Love  JJirst  was  fain, 
And  my  bright  stream  of  bitter  tears  was  rain 

That  beauty  to  accomplish  and  adorn. 

And  such  desire  was  from  compassion  born, 

J  hat  from  the  happy  nook  where  thou  wert  lain 
The  fair  hand  gathered  thee,  and  not  in  vain. 

For  by  my  own  it  willed  thee  to  be  borne. 

And,  as  to  vie  appears,  thou  wouldst  return 
Once  7nore  to  that  fair  hand,  whence  thee  upon 
My  naked  breast  I  have  securely  set: 

The  naked  breast  that  doth  desire  and  burn. 
And  holds  thee  in  her  hearths  place,  that  hath  gone 
To  dwell  where  thou  wert  late,  my  Violet'^ 

If  there  IS  more  gallantry  than  passion  in  compositions 
of  this  nature,  they  show  at  least  that  the  lute  of  Love 
had  received  a  new  string  since  the  time  of  the  trouba- 
dours. 


ganahAaM*.fiH-'-Srj.*»a-hAj<A..,J.fcfraMlftlini.VJ,    *''-J--     tf   J  -  -■■.■Jl~u..v...3,-fc^ y  .r^  .»me^.^.^*^    -.t-- ■^-a.^j^^-U^^^f-ap-^jna  .^■Mh-rf^>Jjw....a-J^   j>...~y  JLJin 


^m 


t^^r^t^ 


114 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE 


self  in  the  power  of  the  treacherous  and  unscrupulous 
King  of  Naples  for  the  sake  of  his  country.  Nor 
had  Lorenzo,  like  Augustus,  ever  occasion  to  pass  the 
sponge  over  an  abortive  tragedy.  His  compositions  are 
of  different  degrees  of  merit,  but  all  are  fluent  and 
graceful. 

We  have  entered  a  different  period  from  that  of  the 
Uberti  and  Frezzi ;  the  tree  of  poetry,  so  long  stitf  and 
dry,  now  swells  with  sap,  and  buds  with  the  prophecy  of 
a  coming  summer.  Two  distinct  impulses  are  observable 
in  Lorenzo  and  his  literary  mate,  Politian  :  in  one  point  of 
view  the  artistic,  in  the  other  the  poetical  spirit  predomi- 
nates. As  artists,  they  strove  successfully  to  attain  perfect 
elegance  of  expression,  and  to  improve  the  metrical  forms 
which  had  descended  from  the  fourteenth  century.  As 
poets,  they  seized  upon  the  songs  and  catches  current  in 
the  mouths  of  the  people,  and  elevated  them  by  judicious 
treatment  into  the  region  of  art.  This  could  be  possible 
only  to  men  of  great  poetic  sensitiveness.  Had  Lorenzo 
and  Politian  been  less  refined  by  culture,  had  the  one 
been  no  scholar  and  the  other  no  prince,  either  might 
have  been  an  Italian  Burns  ;  as  it  is,  their  work  as  lyric 
poets  is  more  nearly  comparable  to  Goethe's.  They 
made  the  popular  Muse  acceptable  to  men  of  breeding, 
w^hile  gratifying  their  own  tastes  by  w^ork  marked  with 
the  stamp  of  study  and  erudition,  and  yet  not  beyond  the 
intelligence  of  the  average  educated  man. 

Lorenzo's  part  as  the  patron  of  art  and  letters  is  so 
considerable,  that  his  writings,  important  as  they  are, 
appear  almost  insignificant  in  comparison.  The  most 
elaborate  of  his  poems  might  be  classed  as  idylls.  They 
comprise  the  Ambra^  a  graceful  and  fanciful  Ovidian 
allegory  on  the  metamorphosis  of  the  nymph  Ambra  into 


LORENZO'S  LOVE  POEMS  115 

a  rock  to  escape  the  pursuit  of  a  river-god  ;  Lc  Caccia 
col  Falcone,  a  lively  description  of  this  aristocratic  sport ; 
and  La  Ncncia  di  Barbertno^  no  less  vivid  in  its  portraiture 
of  the  humours  of  plebeian  love-making.  Lorenzo's  own 
love  poetry  consists  chiefly  of  canzoni,  more  remarkable 
for  elegance  than  depth  of  feeling,  but  perfectly  in  the 
character  of  a  man  of  pleasure  who  is  also  a  refined 
gentleman.  The  spirituality  of  Dante  and  his  contempo- 
raries,  the  romantic  passion  of  Petrarch,  no  longer  suited 
the  age.  The  temple  of  Love,  like  the  temple  of  the 
Church,  had  been  secularised  ;  in  everything  men  habitu- 
ally lived  at  a  lower  level.  Yet  this  declension  is  com- 
pensated in  a  great  degree  by  the  enhanced  feeling  of 
reality  :  there  can  be  no  such  controversy  over  Lorenzo's 
innamorata  as  over  Beatrice  and  Laura.  The  following 
is  a  fair  example  of  his  erotic  style  : 

"  77iy  heaufy,  ij^cntle  Violet,  was  born 

Where  for  the  look  of  Lave  J  first  was  fain. 
And  my  briirht  stream  of  bitter  tears  was  rain 

That  beauty  to  accomplish  and  adorn. 

And  such  desire  was  from  cojnpassion  born, 

J  hat  from  the  happy  nook  where  thou  wert  lain 
The  fair  hand  gathered  thee,  and  not  in  vain. 

For  by  my  own  it  willed  thee  to  be  borne. 

And,  as  to  nie  appears,  thou  wouldst  return 
Once  more  to  that  fair  hand,  whence  thee  upon 
My  naked  breast  I  have  securely  set: 

The  naked  breast  that  doth  desire  and  burn. 
And  holds  thee  in  her  heart'' s  place,  that  hath  gone 
To  dwell  where  thou  wert  late,  my  VioletP 

If  there  is  more  gallantry  than  passion  in  compositions 
of  this  nature,  they  show  at  least  that  the  lute  of  Love 
had  received  a  new  string  since  the  time  of  the  trouba- 
dours. 


i  i6 


ITALIAN   LITERATURE 


Love  of  a  sensuous  kind  is  a  chief  ingredient  in 
Lorenzo's  Canti  Caniasdaiescki^  wliich  are  sometimes 
hii^hly  licentious.  He  is  accused  of  having  composed 
them  with  a  special  view  of  diverting  the  minds  of  the 
young  Florentines  from  politics  ;  but  it  seems  unneces- 
siry  to  go  beyond  the  temptation  to  licence  afforded  by 
the  general  relaxation  of  the  carnival.  The  gay  and  the 
serious  Lorenzo  were  very  different  people,  as  remarked 
by  that  acute  observer  Machiavelli.  His  epistle  to  his 
own  son  Giovanni,  afterwards  Leo  X.,  on  his  elevation 
to  the  Cardinalate  at  fourteen,  is  a  model  of  wisdom  and 
right  feeling.  His  spiritual  poems,  Laudiy  moreover, 
frequently  speak  the  language  of  true  religious  emotion. 

Lorenzo's  court,  as  is  universally  known,  was  the  chosen 
abode  of  artists  and  men  of  letters.  A  twin  star  with 
Lorenzo  himself,  but  even  brighter  in  his  literary  aspect 
wiis  AxGELO  Ambkogini  (1454-92),  knowu  as  Poliziano 
from  his  birth  at  Montepulciano.  I\)litian,  the  most 
brilliant  classical  scholar  of  his  age,  was  perhaps  the 
first  professed  philologist  whose  schohirship  was  entirely 
divested  of  pedantry.  With  him  classical  studies  were 
a  vivifying  influence,  pervading  and  adorning  his  literary 
exercises  in  the  vernacular,  but  implying  no  disparage- 
ment of  the  latter.  There  is  little  to  choose  between 
his  Latin  and  his  Italian  poetry  :  the  same  poetic  spirit 
inspires  both,  and  each  is  an  exemplar  of  the  charm  of 
a  choice,  yet  not  too  ornate  diction.  He  was  accused 
of  writing  his  Latin  verses  '*with  more  heat  than  art"  ; 
but  this  is  only  another  way  of  saying  that  while  com- 
posing them  he  telt  as  an  ancient,  and  might  very  well 
be  taken  for  a  poet  of  the  Silver  Age.  His  lyric 
tragedy  or  opera,  Orfeo,  will  be  treated  along  with  the 
Italian    drama,   of    which   it  was   the   first   meritorious 


POLITIAN 


117 


example.  His  Giostra^  a  poem  on  the  tournament  ex- 
hibited by  Lorenzo's  brother  Giuliano  in  1475,  and 
incidentally  introducing  its  hero's  passion  for  the  lovely 
Simonetta,  remained  unfinished  in  consequence  of  Giu- 
liano's  untimely  death.  It  is  full  of  beauties,  and  is 
memorable  in  Italian  poetry  as  the  first  example  of  the 
thoroughly  successful  employment  of  the  octave  stanza. 
Boccaccio  had  been  too  diffuse  ;  but  Politian  exemplified 
the  perfect  fitness  of  this  form  for  the  combination  of 
narrative  poetry  with  an  inexhaustible  succession  of 
verbal  felicities,  many  of  which,  indeed,  are  appropriated 
from  earlier  poets,  but  all,  old  and  new,  seem  fused 
into  a  glowing  whole  by  the  passion  for  classic  form  and 
sensuous  beauty.  But  Politian  and  his  successors  did 
not  emulate  the  classical  poets'  accurate  delineation  of 
Nature.  The  materials  of  their  descriptions  are  draw^n 
from  storehouses  to  which  every  scholar  has  a  key. 
They  bespeak  reading  and  memory  rather  than  actual 
observation. 

This,  in  Miss  Ellen  Gierke's  version,  is  Politian's  ren- 
dering of  the  vision  of  perpetual  Spring,  first  seen  by 
Homer,  after  him  by  Lucretius,  and  in  our  time  by 
Tennyson.  Like  Ariosto  and  Tasso,  he  places  his  en- 
chanted garden  on  earth. 

*'  A  fair  hill  doth  the  Cyprian  breezes  ivoo^ 
And  sc7>cufold  stream  of  mighty  Nilus  see. 

When  the  horizon  reddeneth  anew  ; 
But  mortal  foot  jnay  not  there  planted  be. 
A  green  knoll  on  its  slope  doth  rise  to  view, 
A  sunny  meadow  sheltering  in  its  lee. 

Where,  wantoning^  mid  flowers,  each  gale  that  passes 
Sets  lightly  quivering  the  verdant  grasses. 

A  wall  of  gold  its  furthest  edge  doth  screen^ 
Where  lies  a  vale  with  shady  trees  set  j  air. 


Ii8  ITALIAN  LITERATURE 

upon  whose  branches^  *mid  leaves  newly  green^ 
The  quiring  birds  chofit  love  songs  on  I  he  air. 
The  grateful  sound  of  waters  chimes  between. 
By  twin  streams  cool  and  lucid  shed  forth  there^ 
In  the  wave  sweet  and  bitter  of  whose  river 
Love  whets  the  golden  arrows  of  his  quiver. 

Nor  the  perennial  garden's  foliage  green 
Doth  snow  new  fallen  blanch,  or  rime  frost  hoar. 
No  vernal  blight  dare  come  these  walls  between. 
No  gale  the  grass  and  shrubs  e'er  ruffles  det. 
Nor  is  tJie  year  in  fourfold  season  seen; 
But  joyous  Spring  here  reigns  for  e7'ermore. 
Shakes  to  the  breeze  her  blonde  and  rippling  tresses, 
And  weaves  her  wreath  of  flowers  as  on  she  presses. ^^ 

In  Politian's  own  eyes  and  those  of  his  contemporaries 
his  achievement  as  a  poet  was  less  important  than  hia 
labour  as  a  classical  scholar.  Nor,  as  respected  the 
needs  and  interests  of  his  contemporaries,  was  this 
judgment  wholly  mistaken.  "  Knowledge  in  that  age," 
says  Symonds,  *'was  the  pearl  of  great  price;  not  the 
knowledge  of  righteousness,  not  the  knowledge  of  Nature 
and  her  laws,  but  the  knowledge  of  the  wonderful  life 
which  throbbed  in  ancient  peoples,  and  which  might 
make  this  old  world  young  again."  Politian's  chief 
merits  as  a  classical  scholar  were  to  have  knowMi  how  to 
excite  a  living  interest  in  antiquity,  and  to  have  been 
the  first  to  attempt  a  scientific  classification  of  MSS. 
His  translations  from  the  Greek  were  admirable.  So 
long  as  Lorenzo  presided  over  Florence,  Politian's  lot, 
though  embittered  by  some  violent  literary  controversies, 
had  been  brilliant  and  prosperous  :  his  patron's  death 
exposed  him  to  the  general  unpopularity  of  the  sup- 
porters of  Lorenzo's  incapable  successor,  the  French 
invader  stood  at  the  doors,  Savonarola's  followers  began 


POPULAR  POETRY 


T19 


to  assail  culture  in  its  representatives,  and  within  little 
more  than  two  years  Politian  escaped  the  gathering 
storm  either  by  a  broken  heart  or  a  voluntary  death. 

To  appreciate  Politian's  services  in  imparting  literary 
form  to  popular  poetry,  it  will  be  necessary  to  bestow  a 
glance  on  this  poetry  as  it  existed  in  Tuscany  in  his  day, 
and  in  a  measure  exists  still.  We  have  previously  re- 
marked upon  the  absence  of  national  ballad  poetry  at  a 
very  early  period  ;  and  when  at  length  w^e  find  traces  of 
popular  song,  little  resembling  Chevy  Chase  is  to  be  dis- 
covered, the  staple  being  carols  and  love  catches.  Some 
of  these  may  be  as  old  as  the  thirteenth  century,  and  the 
mass  continued  augmenting  as  one  anonymous  singer 
after  another  added  something  sufficiently  attractive  to 
be  propagated  from  hamlet  to  hamlet,  and  treasured  in 
the  memory. 

Similar  lyrical  production  went  on  over  most  parts 
of  Italy ;  the  Sicilian  songs,  aftsr  the  Tuscan,  being 
the  most  numerous,  or  at  least  the  best  preserved. 
These  ditties  fall  generally  into  tw^o  divisions,  rispetti  and 
stornelli :  the  former  consisting  of  four  or  six  verses 
rhyming  alternately,  followed  by  a  couplet ;  the  latter  of 
three  lines  only,  the  last  rhyming  with  the  first.  These 
soon  developed  into  the  madrigal^  a  form  affected  by 
persons  of  culture  and  professional  musicians,  but  the 
people  continued  to  carol  as  of  old.  Thus,  sponta- 
neous births  of  the  instinct  for  love  and  song,  under- 
going countless  modifications  in  passing  from  mouth 
to  mouth,  until  the  right  form  has  been  found  at  last, 
and  sifted  by  the  taste  of  generation  after  genera- 
tion, these  little  songs  have  formed  a  really  beautiful 
collection  of  verse,  reflecting  in  their  ardour,  graceful 
fancy   and  purity  of  sentiment,  the  best  characteristics 


4§ 


,2o  ITALIAN   LITERATURE 

of  the  race  from  which  they  spriini^.  How  good  they 
are  mav  be  seen  from  a  few  of  tlie  specimens  so  admir- 
ably rendered  by  Jolui  Addni<^ton  Symonds  :  ^— 

*'  The  moon  has  risen  her  plaint  to  lay 
Before  the  face  of  Lore  Divine ; 
Savin L^  in  /!e..n>en  site  will  not  stay^ 
Sinteyon  hare  stolen  lahai  made  her  shine. 
Aloud  she  wails  with  sorrow  wan  ;— 
She  told  her  stars,  and  two  are  gone  : 

They  are  not  there:  ye  have  them  now; 

They  are  the  eyes  in  your  bright  brow. 

Think  it  no  grief  that  I  am  brown; 
For  all  brunettes  are  born  to  reign  : 
White  is  the  sn'u'.yet  trodden  down/ 
Blaek  pepper,  kings  do  not  disdain  : 
White  snow  lies  mounded  in  the  vales; 
Black  pepper^ s  zveighed  in  brazen  scales, 

O  SwalT:  allow,  flying  through  the  air. 

Turn,  turn,  J  pr: thee,  from  thy  fUgiit  above, 
Gire  me  ene  feather  from  thy  wing  so  fair. 
For  1  w:i:         V  a  letter  to  my  love. 
When  I  have  "written  it  and  made  it  clear. 
Til  t^iz'c  t  vX'  thyfeaJier,  Swallow  dear; 

When  I  have  wnJen  it  on  paper  white, 
ril  make,  I  swear,  thy  missing  feather  right; 
When  once  'tis  written  on  fair  leaves  of  gold, 
ril  ^ive  thee  back  thy  wings  and  flight  so  boldJ* 

Two  other  leading  poetical  figures  of  the  fifteenth 
centurv,  Matteo  Maria  Boiardo  and  Luigi  Pulci,  authors 
of  iheOr/an(fo  Innamorato  and  the  Morgante  Maggiorc, 
will  be  be^t  treated  along  with  the  writers  of  chivalrous 

>  The  best  collection  of  popular  Italian  Wlletristic  literature  is  the  Canti  e 
Rcuconti  dd  Popoh  Italiano,  in  eight  volumes,  e.lited  by  E.  Comparett.  and 
A.  D'Ancona. 


BENIVIENI 


121 


romance  in  epic  form.  It  is  not  quite  clear  how  far 
Pulci  had  a  share  in  tlie  poems  ascribed  to  his  elder 
brother  Luca  (143 1  70)  ;  but  the  latter's  verses  on 
Giuliano  de'  Medici,  his  crusadini^  epic,  Ciriffo  Calvaneo^ 
and  his  pastoral,  Driadco,  undoubtedly  owe  much  to 
Luigi.  The  heroic  epistles  in  verse  which  pass  under 
his  name  are  no  doubt  by  him.  Another  poet,  GiROLAMO 
Benivieni,  shines  amid  the  Platonic  circle  of  Marsilio 
Ficino  and  Pico  della  Mirandola.  His  verses  might  have 
given  him  no  inconsiderable  distinction  if  he  could  have 
attained  to  lucidity  of  diction  ;  but  his  powers  of  expres- 
sion are  inadequate  to  the  abstruseness  of  liis  themes. 
He  does  best  when  his  idealism  is  embodied  in  an 
objective  shape,  as  in  the  following  sonnet,  clearly 
suggested  by  the  hrst  in  the  Vita  Nuova : 


u 


In  utmost  height  of  Heaven  I  saw  the  choir 

Of  happy  stars  in  their  infinity 

Attending  on  the  Sun  obediently, 
Aiid  he  was  pasturing  them  with  his  own  fire. 
And,  wealthy  with  my  spoil,  I  saw  Desire 

Unstring  his  bow  and  lay  his  arrows  by. 

And  proffer  Heaven,  with  all  humility, 
My  heart,  which  golden  drapery  did  attire. 
And,  of  this  disarrayed,  not  half  so  fair 

Smiles  Farth  to  Sun  when  by  his  crescent  light 

The  ivory  horn  of  vernal  Bull  is  smit 
As  in  this  glory  did  my  heart  appear, 

Which  now  my  mortal  breast  doth  scorn  and  slight. 

Abandoning,  nor  will  return  to  it.^' 


The  Italian  writings  of  Benivieni's  friend  Savonarola 
are  chiefly  theological.  Their  fervour  gained  them  great 
influence  at  the  time,  but  the  celebrity  which  they  still 
enjoy  is  due  rather  to  the  fame  of  the  writer  than  to 
their  literary  qualities.     Savonarola  nevertheless  affected 


iiitii  i1iiiiiiitir''--'«'*''''^^««'-^iM«r*iMBm^  --■•-la^i^gs^ 


,22  .  ITALIAN  LITERATURE  ' 

the  literature  of  his  day,  partly  by  his  war  against  classical 
and  Renaissance  culture,  and  partly  by  the  impulse  which 
he  <4ave  to  the  pamphlet,  precursor  of  the  newspaper  press. 
Cristoforo  Landino's  Camaldolese  Dialogues  would  have 
been  important  contributions  to  the  national  literature  if 
they  had  been  written  in  Italian. 

The  first  writer  of  prose  who  presents  us  with  a  per- 
fect example  from  which  the  new  period  may  be  dated 
is  JACOPO  Sannazaro,  as  much  as  Politian  the  nursUng 
of  a  court  ;  to  whom  we  are  also  indebted  for  the  hrst 
example  of  the   pastoral    romance,  and  the   first  proof 
that   excellent    Italian    prose   could   be   written    outside 
Tuscany.     Sannazaro,  born  in  1458,  was  a  Neapolitan  of 
Spanish  descent,  as  it  is  said,  and  the  statement  seems 
to  be  corroborated   by  the   peculiar   independence   and 
dignity   of   character   which    distinguish    him    from    the 
sii^ple  literati  of  his  time.     Even  Pontano,  whose  obli- 
gations to  the  royal  house  of  Naples  were  so  extreme, 
plaved  an  ambiguous  part  upon  the  ephemeral  French 
conquest   of    149V     Sannazaro's  loyalty  not   only  sus- 
tained that  brief  ordeal,  but  when  four  years  later  the 
cause  of  the  Neapolitan  dynasty  was  irrevocably  lost,  he 
accompanied   his    fallen    master   to    France,   and    spent 
several  years  in  exile.    Returning  to  Naples,  he  inhabited 
a  beautiful  villa  at  ^lergellina,  and  devoted  himself  to 
the  poetry  of  which  we  shall  have  to  speak  in  another 
place.     After  witnessing  the  destruction  of  his  retreat  in 
the  French  war  (1528),  he  died  in   1530  in  the  house  of 
Cassandra,  Marchesa  Castriota,  whom  he  had  vainly  de- 
fended against  her  husband's  attempt  to  repudiate  her. 
Few  of  his  contemporaries  deserve  equal   respect  as   a 
man  ;  and  although  as  a  writer  but  of  the  second  rank, 
it  was  granted  to  him,  alike  in  prose  and  verse,  to  mark 


SANNAZARO'S  ARCADIA 


123 


I 

4 


an  era  in  literature  signalising  the  triumph  of  Petrarch 
and  Boccaccio  over  the  pedantry  of  the  fifteenth  cen- 
tury,  but  at  the  same  time  the  deliberate  preference  of 
form  to   matter,  and  the  discouragement   of   irregular 

originality. 

Sannazaro's  Arcadia,  historically  the  most  important 
of  his  writings,  is  comparatively  a  youthful  performance, 
having  been  substantially  completed  by  1489,  though  not 
published  in  a  correct  edition  until  1504.     It  would  in 
any  case  mark  an  epoch  as  the  first  perfect  example  of 
the  pastoral  romance,  which  Boccaccio  had  foreshadowed 
in  his  Ameto,  but  which  Sannazaro  enriched  by  elements 
derived  from  Theocritus  and  Virgil.     His  landscape  and 
personages  are  entirely  classical ;  the  shepherds  contend 
with  each  other  in  song  precisely  as  in  the  Greek  and 
Latin  eclogues,  and  no  attempt  is  made  to   represent 
rustic   manners  as  they  really  are.     The  descriptions, 
whether  of  nature  or  of  humanity,  on  the  other  hand, 
are  graceful  and  vivid,  and  informed  by  a  most  poetical 
sentiment ;  and  it  may  be  said  that  Sannazaro's  work 
would  be  more  esteemed  at  this  day  if  it  had  had  fewer 
imitators.     The  style  admits  of  but  little  variety,  and 
pastoral  fiction  easily  became   insipid  in  the  hands  of 
a  succession  of  followers  who  did  not,  like  Shakespeare 
in  the  Winters  Tale,  resort  to  Nature  for  their  delinea- 
tions.    Sannazaro  himself  is  not  exempt  from  the  charge 
of  monotony.     More  serious  defects,  however,  are  those 
of  excessive  Latinisation  in  the  construction  of  sentences, 
and  rhetorical  exaggeration,  arising  from  his  too  close 
adherence  to  the  immature  style  of  Boccaccio's  early 
writings,  instead  of  the  simple  elegance  of  the  Decameron. 
The  resolution  to  achieve  poetry  in  prose  at  any  cost, 
causes  a  crabbed  involution  and   overloads  the  diction 


124  ITALIAN  LITERATURE 

with  adjectives  ;  while  there  is  yet  enough  of  true  feeling 
to  overcome  even  the  wearisomeness  of  the  perpetual 
laments  of  the  shepherds  over  the  unparalleled  cruelty 
of  their  innamoratas.  Sannazaro  had  a  mistress  to  whose 
memory  he  remained  faithful  all  his  life,  and  most  of  his 
fictitious  characters  veil  actual  personages.  When  this 
is  understood,  the  romance  loses  its  apparent  artificiality; 
and  Settembrini's  remark  is  justified,  ''Anchc  oggi  si  scntc 
una  dolcezza  d'  affetto  a  leggere  quel  libro." 

The  main  literary  interest,  however,  of  the  Arcadia  is 
that  it  marks  an  epoch  and  carries  the  reform  which 
Lorenzo  de'  Medici  and  Politian  had  initiated  in  verse 
into  the  domain  of  prose.  It  is  perhaps  the  sole  Italian 
prose  composition  of  the  fifteenth  century  which  can  be 
said  to  wear  a  classic  stamp  ;  and  being  received  with 
enthusiasm  and  read  by  all,  it  f^xed  a  standard  which 
subsequent  writers  were  compelled  to  maintain.  It  pre- 
scribed the  rule  for  pastoral  romance  in  all  languages  : 
not  only  did  Sidney  borrow  its  spirit  and  many  of  its 
episodes  as  well  as  its  name  for  his  own  work,  more, 
however,  of  a  romance  and  less  of  a  pastoral  than 
Sannazaro's;  not  only  did  the  two  great  Portuguese 
pastoralists,  Bernardim  Ribeiro  and  Montemayor,  model 
themselves  upon  it ;  but  Shakespeare  took  from  it  the 
name  of  Ophelia,  and  traces  of  it  may  be  found,  not 
only  in  the  pastoral  part  of  Keats's  EndymioUy  but  even 

in  his  Hyperioji, 

By  Sannaz:iro's  time,  then,  it  may  be  said  that  Italian 
literature  was  fairly  despatched  on  the  route  which  it 
was  to  follow  throughout  the  golden  Cinque  Cento. 
Elegance,  finish,  polish  were  to  be  the  chief  aims  ;  form 
was  to  be  esteemed  at  least  on  a  par  with  matter  ;  the 
medieval  elements,  as  we  find  them  in  Dante,  were  to 


CLASSICAL  TRADITION 


125 


be  kept  in  abeyance.  The  classical  tradition  was  to  be 
taken  up,  and  Italy  was  to  appear  as  the  literary  heiress 
'  of  Rome  ;  but  not  to  the  extent  of  corrupting  her  own 
language  with  Latinisms.  Such  a  tacit  resolution  was 
admirable  for  raising  and  maintaining  the  standard  of 
literary  composition,  but  was  hostile  to  the  development 
of  transcendent  genius. 


CHAPTER  X 


CHIVALRIC    POETRY 

The  history  of  the  Italian  chivalric  «pic  is  one  of  the 
most  interesting  departments  of  the  story  of  Hterature, 
both  on  its  own  account,  and  because  it  reveals  as  ui  a 
mirror  the  growth  of  the  more  important  epic  of  the  tale 
of  Troy.      It  arose  out  of  a  real  event  of  the  deepest 
importance   to    Europe,   but    this    it    so   disfigured   by 
romance  and  imagination  as  to  be  hardly  recognisable. 
Charles  Martel,  the  deliverer  of  France  from  the  Saracens, 
is  confounded  with   another  and  still  more  illustrious 
Charles,  whose  relations  with  the  Saracen  monarchs  were 
usually  amicable  ;  and,  by  what  seems  to  be  a  universal 
law,  this  hero  comes  to  occupy  but  a  corner  of  the  temple 
nominally  dedicated  to  him,  and  his  renown  is  trans- 
ferred to  creatures  of  pure  imagination.   As  Agamemnon, 
who  at  all  events  personifies  the  most  powerful  state  of 
primitive  Greece,  yields  as  a  poetic  hero  to  such  histori- 
cally subordinate,  if  not  absolutely  fictitious  personages 
as  Achilles  and  Ulysses  ;  as  the  terrible  Attila,  the  portent 
of  his  time,  shrinks  in  the  Nibelungen  Lied  into  the  m- 
significant  figure  of  Etzel ;  so,  in  the  romancer's  eye,  the 
real  glories  of  Charlemagne  dwindle  to  nothing  before 
the  petty  skirmish  of  Koncesvalles. 

In  all  these  instances,  and  equally  so  in  the  cycle  of 
Arthur,  a   germ   of   historical  reality   lies   latent   in   the 


120 


ROMANTIC  POETRY 


127 


human  consciousness  for  centuries,  and  then  suddenly 
becomes  prolific  of  a  wealth  of  imaginative  detail.  There 
can  be  no  reasonable  doubt  that  the  writers  of  the 
Homeric  epics,  whether  few  or  many,  stood  in  the  same 
relation  to  their  sources  as  Malory  and  Boiardo  to  theirs, 
inheritors  of  a  tradition  in  which  they  reposed  genuine 
belief,  but  which  at  the  same  time  they  thought  them- 
selves at  liberty  to  embellish  and  diversify  as  they  deemed 
best.  We  should  probably  find  the  resemblance  between 
the  development  of  Trojan  and  of  Arthurian  legend  to 
be  very  close,  had  we  the  same  acquaintance  with  the 
intellectual  history  of  ancient  Greece  as  we  possess  w'ith 
that  of  the  mediaeval  period.  Both  were  the  result  of  a 
great  poetical  revival,  when  the  awakening  spirit  grasped 
eagerly  at  the  nutriment  nearest  to  hand  ;  and  the  Celtic 
romancers  of  the  twelfth  century  were  inspired  by  true 
Celtic  yearnings  for  an  irrevocable  past,  finding  much 
of  their  material  in  the  national  historian,  Geoffrey  of 
Monmouth. 

With  the  Italian  romantic  epic  the  case  was  somewhat 
different :  it  w^as  largely  influenced  by  a  single  book,  and 
one  composed  with  a  direct  polemical  purpose.  The 
fear  and  hatred  entertained  in  the  tenth  and  eleventh 
centuries  for  the  Saracen  invaders  and  the  Danes,  and 
other  heathens  frequently  confounded  with  them,  found 
expression  at  last  in  a  remarkable  book,  the  Latin 
Chronicles  attributed  to  Turpin,  Archbishop  of  Rheims 
in  the  eighth  century,  but  really  a  fabrication  of  the 
eleventh,  in  which  Charlemagne  and  his  paladins  were 
idealised  as  the  vanquishers  of  the  pagans.  From  the 
prominent  position  given  to  Charlemagne's  imaginary 
Spanish  expeditions,  the  author  is  thought  to  have  been 
a    Spaniard,  and  he  owed   much   to  that  *'  Iliad  of  the 


,28  ITALIAN  LITERATURE 

Middle  Ages,"  the   Song  of  Roland,  also  a   production 
of    the    eleventh    century.     The    panic    passed    away, 
but  left   behind   it  a  rich  deposit   of   romantic  fiction, 
deriving    a    beauty    unknown    to    former    ages    from 
the    hi"h    estimate   of    woman   which    Christianity   and 
Teutonic   feeling   had   jointly    contributed    to    the   col- 
lective human  consciousness.     Utilised  in  many  French 
narrative  poems,  this  chivalric  element  first  appeared  m 
Italian  in  the  elaborate  prose-romance,  /  Rcali  di  Francia. 
From  this  the  step  to  metrical  epic  was  easy,  but  the 
awkwardness  of  the  Italian  poets'  first  attempts  seems  to 
indicate  that  it  was  not  taken  until  the  poetic  art  had 
reached  its  period  of  deepest  depression  in  the  early  part 
of  the  fifteenth  century,  when  the  rude  and  tedious  epics 
Buovo  di  Antona  (Bevis  of  Hampton),  La  Spagna,  hebus, 
and  Queen  Ancronja  were  probably  composed. 

Another  epic  of  the  same  period,  without  a  name, 
recently  discovered,  is  to  a  considerable  extent  the 
«roun Jwork  of  the  Morgante  Maggiore '  of  LuiGl  PULCI 
ri4.r-87),  a  humorous  poem  with  a  serious  purpose, 
or  at  least,  unconsciously  expressing  some  of  the  most 
serious  phenomena  of  the  age.  Its  mixture  of  sincere 
religious  feeling  and  genuine  humanity  with  the  most 
irreverent  buffoonery  has  made  it  the  stumbling-block 
of  critics  and  literary  historians,  whose  interpretation 
of  its  tendencies  and  estimate  of  its  author's  character 
are  usually  determined  by  their  own  prepossessions. 
While  it  is  impossible  to  deny  that  Morgante's  com- 
panion, the  epicurean  gourmand  Margutte,-  is  the  author's 

1  M„rEanle  is  the  name  of  a  c'-i  >...,vc,ua  t-  rhristianUy  l.y  Orlamlo. 
He  (lies  in  the  miiUlle  of  the  poem. 

■^  The  evi.lent  Greek  derivation  of  this  name  from  mar^m  (gluttonous)  lends 
some  countenance  to  the  suspicion  that  I'olitian  had  a  hand  in  Pule,  s  poem. 


MORGANTE  MAGGIORE 


129 


I 


special  creation,  and  the  object  of  his  chief  predilection 
among  his  characters,  other  portions  of  the  poem  are 
couched  in  so  lofty  a  strain,  that  he  has  been  supposed 
to  have  had  assistance  from  no  less  a  philosopher  than 
Ficino  and  no  less  a  poet  than  Politian.  Sarcastic  sallies 
at  the  expense  of  the  popular  theology  alternate  with 
set  passages  of  fervent  orthodoxy.  To  us  the  Morgante 
appears  a  symbol  of  the  intellectual  anarchy  then  pre- 
valent among  the  most  intelligent  Italians,  among  whom 
the  religious  sentiment  survived,  wliile  its  external  vesture 
had  become  mere  mythology ;  who  had  neither,  like 
Benivieni,  fallen  under  the  influence  of  Savonarola,  nor 
were  disqualified  by  lack  of  classical  culture  from  par- 
ticipating in  the  humanistic  revival.  Pulci's  opinions 
are  probably  expressed  by  Astaroth,  a  devil  introduced 
to  aid  the  paladins  and  talk  divinity,  and  whose  discourse 
contains  a  marvellous  foreshadowing  of  the  discovery  of 
America. 

There  can,  nevertheless,  be  no  question  that  the  frivo- 
lous and  mocking  element  in  the  Morgante  is  the  source 
of  its  celebrity  and  literary  importance.  It  is  the  first 
really  great  modern  example  of  burlesque  poetry,  and 
there  are  few  literatures  without  traces  of  its  influence. 
In  our  own,  it  was  the  father  of  Frere's  Whistlecraft, 
which  was  the  father  of  Beppo  and  the  Vision  of  Judguienty 
the  first  stanza  of  which  litter  poem  inverts  an  idea  of 
Piilci's  ;  and  Byron  accompanied  these  masterpieces  by 
a  tnmslation  of  Pulci's  first  canto,  upon  which  he  himself 
set  a  special  value.  It  has  been  contended  that  Shake- 
speare was  acquainted  w^ith  Pulci,  and  certainly  Panizzi's 
portrait  of  the  vindictive  traitor  Gano  in  the  Morgante 
might  almost  serve  for  one  of  I  ago,  while  Orlando's 
unsuspecting  magnanimity  resembles  Othello's.     Panizzi 


I30  ITALIAN  LITERATURE 

justly  praises  the  truth  and  dignity  of  the  characters  of 
Orlando  and  Rinaldo,  and  says  of  the  general  economy 
*of  the  poem  :  ''  Fulci  was  the  first  who  wrote  a  long  and 
complicated  poem  which,  diversified  as  it  is  by  many  in- 
cidents, has  a  principal  subject  and  a  principal  character, 
on  which  all  other  parts  and  personages  depend,  without 
which  the  poem  could  not  subsist,  and  which  by  itself 
alone  forms  an  uninterrupted  narrative.  This  hero  and 
this  subject  are  Gano  and  his  treachery,  which  brings  on 
the  defeat  of  Roncesvalles." 

These  are  great  merits.  The  principal  defects  are 
summed  up  by  a  genial  admirer,  Leigh  Hunt  (Slories 
from  the  Italian  Poets,  vol.  i.),  as  the  want  of  tine  imagery 
and  natural  description,  and  frequent  triviality  and  pro- 
lixity.  The  vulgarity  objected  to  by  the  Italian  critics 
must  exist,  but  is  not  equally  offensive  to  a  foreigner. 
The  poem  is  fully  analysed  by  I>anizzi  in  the  first  volume 
of  his  edition  of  Boiardo,  and  its  general  character  may 
be  very  well  caught  from  Byron's  translation  of  the 
first  canto.  Pulci's  higher  strain  is  ably  conveyed  in 
the  following  portion  of  a  translation  of  an  episode  by 
Lady  Dacre  : 

^'And  because  Love  not  7villini^ly  excuses 
One  who  is  loved  and  loveth  not  again; 
(For  tyrannous  were  deemed  the  rule  he  uses. 
Should  they  who  sue  for  pity  sue  in  vain  ; 
What  gracious  lord  his  faithful  liege  refuses?) 
So  when  the  gentle  dame  perceived  the  pain 
That  well-nigh  wrought  to  death  her  valiant  knight. 
Her  melting  heart  began  his  love  requite. 

And  from  her  eyes  soft  beamed  the  answering  ray 
That  Olivers  soul-thrilling  glance  returns; 
Love  in  these  gleamy  lightnings  loves  to  play 
Till  but  onejlatne  two  youthful  bosoms  burns. 


PULCI  131 

To  tend  his  grie^'ous  wounds  she  conies  one  day. 
And  towards  him  with  greeting  mute  she  turns; 
For  on  her  lips  her  voiceless  words  are  stayed. 
And  her  bright  eyes  are  fai7i  to  lend  their  aid. 

When  Oliver  peixeived  that  Forisene 
Accosted  him  with  shrinking,  timid  grace. 
The  pains  which  insupportable  had  been. 
Vanished,  and  to  far  other  ills  gave  place : 
His  soul  is  tost  sweet  hopes  and  doubts  between. 
And  you  might  almost  bnid  these  fiutterings  trace 
A  dear  assurance  to  be  loved  by  her; 
For  silence  is  Love*s  best  interpreter^ 

Not  much  is  known  of  Pulci's  life  except  that  he  was 
the  intimate  friend,  correspondent,  and  confidential  agent 
of  Lorenzo  de'  Medici,  and  is  said  to  have  composed  his 
poem  at  the  request  of  Lorenzo's  mother,  w^hom  he 
celebrated  after  her  death.  The  disposition  of  his  con- 
temporaries to  attribute  the  finest  portions  of  his  poem 
to  Ficino  and  Politian  may  indicate  some  failure  on  his 
part  to  sustain  the  poetical  character  in  his  daily  walk 
and  conversation  ;  while  the  more  serious  passages  of 
his  poetry,  especially  the  noble  pathos  of  the  death  of 
Orlando,  disclose  an  elevated  soul.  Orlando,  standing 
alone  among  his  slaughtered  friends  on  the  battlefield  of 
Roncesvalles,  is  visited  by  the  angel  Gabriel,  who  offers 
him  a  new  army,  and  promises  that  earth  and  sea  shall 
tremble  at  his  name.  But  Orlando  prefers  to  follow 
those  who  are  gone.  The  Morgan te  was  not  printed  till 
the  year  after  Pulci's  death.  His  minor  w^orks  include  a 
poem  of  humble  life,  in  imitation  of  Lorenzo's  Nencia, 
and  a  series  of  polemical  sonnets  against  Matteo  Franco, 
w^ho  was  equally  dyslogistic  on  his  own  part.  Neither 
poet  need  be  taken  very  seriously. 


132 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE 


ORLANDO  INNAMORATO 


133 


The  year  preceding  the  appearance  of  the  Morgante 
(i486)  saw  the  posthumous  pubUcation  of  the  first  part 
of  another  poem,  which,  from  some  points  of  view,  is  en- 
titled to  rank  at  the  very  head  of  romantic  poetry.  This 
is  the  Orlando  Innamorato  of  Matteo  Maria  Boiardo, 
Count  of  Scandiano.  Little  is  known  of  his  life  except 
its  simple  and  noble  outline.  He  was  born  at  his  family 
seat  of  Scandiano,  near  Reggio,  in  the  Modenese,  about 
1434.  Like  his  successors,  Ariosto  and  Tasso,  he  was  a 
favourite  at  the  court  of  the  Duke  of  Ferrara,  his  sove- 
reign. He  celebrated  Antonia  Caprara  in  his  lyrics,  and 
bestowed  his  hand  upon  Taddea  Novellara.  In  his  later 
years  he  was  successively  governor  of  Modena  and  Reggio. 
In  his  disposition  he  was  most  generous,  and  too  clement 
for  his  arduous  public  duties.  He  composed  Latin  poetry, 
and  translated  several  classical  and  other  authors  ;  and 
died  in  1494,  on  the  eve  of  the  invasion  of  Charles  VIII., 
prophetically  bew^ailing  the  consequent  ruin  of  Italy  at 
the  end  of  his  unfinished  Orlando  Innamorato^  which  he 
is  supposed  to  have  begun  about  1472.  The  greater  part 
of  this  poem  had  been  published  in  i486,  the  continua- 
tion is  said  to  have  appeared  in  1495,  but  the  edition  of 
1506  is  the  earliest  now  extant. 

Although  Orlando  and  Rinaldo  are  the  heroes,  the  story 
of  Boiardo's  poem  is  original.  *'  Turpino  istesso  la  nas- 
cose,"  he  says.  It  is  exceedingly  graceful  and  ingenious. 
Arg:ilia  and  his  sister  Angelica,  the  children  of  the  King 
of  Cathay,  present  themselves  at  Charlemagne's  court. 
The  former  has  an  enchanted  lance,  by  the  virtue  of 
which  he  might  have  overthrown  all  Charles's  paladins  ; 
but  the  pig-headed  Saracen  Feraii  persists,  like  Monsieur 
Jourdain's  servant,  in  thrusting  tierce  when  he  ought  to 
thrust  quarte,  and  Argalia  is  glad  to  make  his  escape, 


leaving  the  lance  behind  him.  It  falls  into  the  hands 
of  Astolfo,  the  English  knight,  not  hitherto  especially 
distinguished  in  battle  or  tourney,  but  w^ho  at  least  pos- 
sesses his  countrymen's  characteristic  of  not  knowing 
when  they  are  beaten. 

"  So/ea  dir^  cU  e^Ii  era  per  sciagura^ 
E  tornava  a  cader  senza pauraP 

By  means  of  this  lance  Astolfo  performs  the  most 
signal  exploits,  delivering  Charles  from  the  invasion  of 
Gradasso,  King  of  Sericana,  who  makes  war  upon  him  to 
obtain  Rinaldo's  steed  Bajardo,  and  Orlando's  sword 
Durindana.  Rinaldo  and  Orlando  themselves  are  absent 
in  pursuit  of  Angelica,  who  has  returned  to  her  own 
country.  Angelica  and  Rinaldo  are  alternately  wrought 
to  fondness  and  antipathy  through  the  spell  of  enchanted 
potions  supplied  by  the  poet  ad  libitum,  Orlando,  with- 
out obtaining  any  share  of  her  affections,  remains  her 
humble  slave.  All  are  involved  in  a  maze  of  adventures, 
most  cunningly  interwoven,  replete  with  the  endless 
delight  of  inexhaustible  invention  and  the  surprise  of 
perpetual  novelty.  No  motto  for  the  poem  could  be 
more  appropriate  than  that  with  which  Panizzi  prefaces 
his  edition  : 

^''  Ille  per  exientumfunem  mi  hi  posse  videtur 
Ire  poet a^  meum  qui  pectus  inaniter  angity 
Jrritaty  muicetyfalsis  terroribus  impiety 
Ut  magus ^  et  modo  me  Thebis^  modo  ponit  Athenis!^ 

In  spite  of  the  wild  and  fanciful  character  of  the  inci- 
dents, a  deep  interest  is  excited  for  the  principal  per- 
sonages, who  are  truly  human,  except  when  avowedly  of 
10 


\ 


134 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE 


the  fortisque   Gyas  fortisque  Cloanthus   order,  or,  as  the 
Italian  poet  himself  has  it, 

^^  Avino,  Avolio^  Ottone^  e  BerlinghieroP 

In  this  respect  Boiardo  has  a  great  advantage  over 
Spenser  ;  his  characters  are  actual  people,  not  mere 
abstractions,  and  he  is  unencumbered  with  allegory. 
As  a  master  of  poetic  language  he  is  greatly  infe- 
rior. Though  both  picturesque  and  tuneful,  he  is  far 
from  rivalling  the  colour  and  music  of  the  English- 
man. Compared  to  the  Faerie  Queene  his  poem  is  as 
his  own  clear-chiming  octave  to  the  sonorous  magni- 
ficence of  the  Spenserian  stanza.  In  general,  his  tone- 
is  much  more  easy  and  familiar  than  Spenser's  ;  when 
he  chooses,  however,  his  sentiment  is  more  elevated  and 
his  pathos  more  moving.  Poetry  has  few  passages  at 
once  so  nobly  heroic  and  so  exquisitely  touching  as  the 
combat  between  Orlando  and  Agricane,  epitomised  by 
Leigh  Hunt  in  his  Stories  from  the  Ttalian  Poets.  The 
pen  fell  from  Boiardo's  hand  just  as  he  w^as  bringing  his 
errant  heroes  back  to  encounter  the  new  invasion  of  the 
African  king  Agramante,  and  the  powerful  hand  that 
took  it  up  used  it  to  delay  the  approaching  denouement, 
and  superimpose  a  new  structure  upon  the  original 
foundation.  In  every  literary  quality  Ariosto  excels 
Boiardo,  but  he  is  a  remove  further  from  the  realms  of 
chivalry  and  fairie,  and 

*'  Never  can  recapture 
The  Jirst  Jine  careless  rapture!* 

Both  are  poets  of  the  Renaissance,  but  Ariosto  has  more 
of    that   aspect   of   pomp   and  luxury  w^hich    estranged 


STYLE  OF  BOIARDO 


135 


Ruskin,  and  Boiardo  of  that  half-erudite,  half-ignorant 
naivete  which  so  fascinates  in  the  pictures  of  Botticelli 
and  Roselli.  The  following  stanzas,  translated  by  Miss 
Ellen  Gierke,  form  an  excellent  specimen  of  Boiardo's 
manner  in  general,  and  exemplify  that  delightful  blend- 
ing of  classic  and  romantic  feeling  only  possible  in  the 
youth  of  a  literature  : 

**  In  the  glade's  heart  a  youth  upon  the  sward, 
All  nude,  disported  him  with  song  and  jest  ; 
Three  ladies  fair,  to  serve  their  love  and  lord, 
Danced  round  him,  they,  too,  nude  and  all  undrest. 
Unmeet  for  sword  and  shield,  for  watch  and  ward. 
He  seemed,  with  eyes  of  brown,  and  sunny  crest. 
That  yet  the  dim  upon  his  cheek  had  sprouted. 
By  some  might  be  averred,  by  others  doubted. 

Of  roses,  violets,  and  all  blossoms  pied, 
Full  baskets  holding,  tiicy  their  merry  game 
Of  love  and  frolic  on  the  greensward  plied. 
When  Montalbands  Lord  upo7t  them  came. 

*  Behold  the  traitor  P  with  one  voice  tligy  cried; 

*  Behold  the  recrca?it  /  '  did  all  exclaim. 

^  Him,  who  all  joy  cojttemned  of  sense  enraptured. 
Now  in  his  own  despite  ot4r  snare  hath  captured.^ 

And  with  their  baskets,  wheji  these  words  were  said, 
They  on  Rlnaldo  flung  themselves  amain; 
One  I'iolets  threw,  another  roses  red. 
Lilies  and  hyacinths  they  strewed  like  rain  ; 
Each  blow  unto  his  heart  keen  anguish  sped, 
Tiie  marrow  of  his  bones  was  searched  with  pain^ 
II  ith  burning  aches  they  sting  7uhere'er  they  settle, 
As  tJiough  of  fire  were  leaf  and  flower  and  petal. 


The  youth  who  nude  had  figured  07t  the  scene, 
When  all  his  basket  he  had  emptied  out, 
With  a  tall  lily -stem  full-branched  with  green, 
Rinaldo  on  Mambrino's  helm  did  flout. 


13^ 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE 

No  help  availed  that  baron  bold,  I  ween. 

Felled  like  a  four-year  child  beneath  the  clout. 

Scarce  touched  he  earth,  ere  he  who  thus  had  mauled  him^ 

Caught  by  the  heels  and  round  the  meadow  hauled  him. 

Each  of  those  ladies  three  a  garland  wore. 
Of  roses  twined,  deep  damask  or  snow-white; 
Each  from  her  head  its  garniture  now  tore. 
Since  other  :,  capons  failed  them  for  the  fight. 
And  though  the  knight  cried  mercy  der  and  der. 
They  ceased  not,  c\  n  i.'hcn  tired,  to  scourge  and  smite, 
And  dragged  him  round,  and  did  with  blows  belabour, 
Until  the  noonday  sun  shone  on  their  labour. 

Nor  hauberk  stout,  nor  iron  plate  of  mail. 

Those  blows  could  fend,  or  parry  their  fierce  might; 

But  all  his  flesh  was  bruised  with  wound  and  wale^ 

Beneath  his  arms,  and  with  such  fire  alight. 

That  souls  condemned,  in  the  infernal  vale. 

Must  of  a  surety  suffer  pains  more  slight 

Than  those  in  which  this  baron  sore  did  languish. 

When  like  to  die  of  utter  fear  and  anguish. 

Nor  could  he  tell  if  gods  or  men  were  those, 
Nor  prayers  availed,  nor  aught  such  foes  could  rout; 
And  thus  continued  they,  nor  took  repose, 
Till  on  their  shoulders  wings  began  to  sprout. 
Of  white  and  gold,  vermilion  blent  with  rose; 
While  from  each  plume  a  living  eye  looked  out. 
Not  peacock-orbed,  or  other  fowl's  in  seeming. 
But  like  a  lovely  maiden's  softly  gleaming. 

Then  straight  did  they  uplift  themselves  inflight. 
And  one  by  one  unto  high  heaven  upsoared, 
Rinaldo,  on  the  lawn,  in  doleful  plight. 
Now  left  alone,  with  tears  his  state  deplored. 
Overwhelmed  so  sore  with  pain  and  woe  that  quite 
His  senses  ebbed  away,  in  grief  outpoured ; 
And  in  the  end  such  anguish  did  invade  him, 
That,  as  one  dead,  down  on  the  sward  he  laid  hifnP 


BOIARDO  AND  BERNI 


13;- 


The  fastidious  refinement  of  the  Itahans  of  the  six- 
teenth century  for  a  time  obscured  the  fame  of  one  of 
their  most  dehghtful  authors.  We  have  seen  that 
Boiardo  was  a  native  of  the  district  of  Reggio ;  we 
have  also  seen  that  Reggio  was  among  the  places  which, 
in  the  opinion  of  no  less  eminent  a  judge  than  Dante, 
were  disqualified  by  their  dialect  from  ever  producing 
a  poet.  It  is  no  wonder,  therefore,  that  the  Orlando 
Innamorato  should  teem  with  inelegances  of  diction, 
scarcely  perceptible  to  a  foreigner,  but  which  seemed 
most  flagrant  in  an  age  when  priests  pocketed  their 
breviaries  for  fear  of  contaminating  their  style.  Two 
other  poets  independently  addressed  themselves  to  the 
task  of  making  Boiardo  presentable.  Domenichi,  '*a 
literary  gentleman  by  trade,"  did  little  good  or  harm  ; 
he  neither  added  nor  omitted  a  stanza,  except  in  the  first 
canto,  and  as  he  went  on  his  emendations  fell  off. 
Berni,  a  great  writer  in  his  way,  of  whom  much  must 
be  said  when  we  treat  of  comic  and  familiar  poetry, 
inserted  many  stanzas  of  his  own,  and  altered  so  many 
throughout  as  to  metamorphose  the  spirit  no  less  than 
the  diction  of  the  poem.  Chivalry  and  humour  are 
nicely  balanced  throughout  the  original ;  the  poet  occa- 
sionally smiles  at  the  extravagance  of  his  own  imagina- 
tions, but  his  irony  never  broadens  into  burlesque.  In 
Berni's  rifacimento  the  element  of  humour  greatly  pre- 
ponderates, and  the  elegance  and  grace  of  the  adultera- 
tion make  no  sufHcient  amends  for  the  transposition 
of  a  noble  poem  from  an  heroic  into  a  familiar  key. 
Although  his  rifacimento  was  not  frequently  reprinted,  it 
attained  such  celebrity  in  literary  circles  that  Boiardo 
was  almost  forgotten,  and  the  Orlando  Innamorato  com- 
monly passed  under  Berni's  name.     No  edition  of  the 


I3S 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE 


original  as  Boiardo  wrote  it  was  published  from  1544 
to  1830,  when  Antonio  Panizzi,  doubtless  stimulated  by 
the  cucumstance  that  lie  himself  was  born  near  Keggio,^ 
redeemed  it  from  oblivion,  and  restored  it  to  the  place 
it  lias  ever  since  maintained  as  a  star  of  at  least  the 
second  magnitude  in  the  constellation  of  Italian  epij 
poetry. 

The  almost  simultaneous  appearance  of  two  such 
poems  as  the  Morgante  and  the  Orlando  by  two  writers 
of  such  soci:d  and  intellectual  distinction  as  Pulei  and 
Boiardo,  mdicates  that  the  love  of  chivalrous  hction 
must  have  been  very  rife  in  Italy.  It  is  remarkable 
that  the  Italian  writers  should  have  so  rarely  essayed 
the  easier  path  of  prose-romance,  but  this  they  left  to 
the  Spaniards,  who  on  their  part,  excepting  in  ballads, 
in  that  age  rarely  ventured  upon  poetical  composition. 
One  onlv  of  the  Italian  romantic  epics  between  Boiardo 
and  Ariosto  deserves  mention.  It  is  the  Mambriano  of 
P^KAXCESCO  Bello,  known  as  //  Cicco  d'Adria.  The 
blind  bard  amused  the  court  of  Mantua  with  recitations 
which  he  afterwards  stitched  together  into  a  long  poem 
devoid  of  all  pretence  to  epic  unity.  But,  as  he  himself 
observes,  he  thought  he  had  done  enough  in  bringing 
all  the  paladins  back  to  Paris,  and  rendering  all  the 
Saracens  tributary  to  the  Emperor.  His  diction  is  often 
as  unshapen  as  his  story  ;  nevertheless,  he  is  a  real  poet, 
and  his  description  of  the  Temple  of  Mars  in  particular 
will  compare  not  unfavourably  with  those  of  Statins, 
Chaucer,  and  Boccaccio. 

^  It  is  curious  to  note  in  this  connection  that  Rubiera,  the  original  seat  of 
Boiardo's  family,  havini^  l»ecoiiie  a  state  prison  under  the  modern  Dukes  of 
Modena,  gave  Panizzi  the  subject  for  his  first  publication,  known  under  the 
abridged  title  of  /  Processi  di  Rubiera. 


BOIARDO'S  MINOR  POEMS 


139 


Before  parting  with  the  predecessors  of  Ariosto,  a 
word  should  be  said  of  Boiardo's  minor  poems.  Besides 
a  comedy,  Timo7ie,  to  be  noticed  hereafter,  he  wrote 
numerous  canzoni  and  sonnets.  Of  these  Panizzi  justly 
says  :  ''  Boiardo's  poetry,  although  in  the  manner  of 
Petrarch,  has  all  the  marks  of  originality,  and  re- 
sembles more  the  character  of  the  predecessors  of  the 
Bard  of  Laura  than  of  his  successors.  His  poetry  was  not 
written  to  be  read,  but  to  be  sung,  and  was  submitted  to 
those  musical  as  well  as  metrical  laws  by  which  that  of 
Petrarch  had  been  governed.  In  his  day,  music  was  still 
subject  to  poetry,  and  the  inanimate  instruments  were 
designed  to  support,  not  to  drown,  the  human  voice." 
Panizzi,  therefore,  seems  to  consider  Boiardo  the  last  of 
the  truly  melodious  lyrists  of  Italy  ;  though  it  is  just  to 
point  out  that  his  remark  respecting  the  predominance 
of  the  instrument  over  the  voice  did  not  become  appli- 
cable until  the  seventeenth  century,  and  that  he  else- 
where seems  to  confine  the  decay  of  Italian  melody  to 
the  two  centuries  immediately  preceding  his  own  time 
(1830).  His  edition  of  Boiardo's  lyrics  is  almost  inac- 
cessible but  he  has  quoted  enough  in  his  memoir  of 
the  author  to  confirm  his  favourable  judgment  of  their 
literary  qualities. 


CHAPTER  XI 


ARIOSTO  AND  HIS  IMITATORS 


BoiARDO  had  accomplished  a  great  work.  He  had  raised 
the  old  chivalric  romance  to  epic  dignity,  and  shown  its 
capability  of  classic  form.  This,  impeded  by  his  pro- 
vincial education  and  the  low  standard  of  poetry  pre- 
vailing in  his  time,  he  had  not  himself  been  able  to 
impart.  The  achievement  was  reserved  for  one  who  has 
infinitely  transcended  him  in  reputation,  though  it  may 
be  questioned  whether  he  has  indeed  greatly  surpassed 
him  in  any  respect  but  style  and  the  gift  of  story-telling, 
and  who  is  certainly  inferior  to  him  in  sincerity  and 
simplicity. 

LODOVico  Ariosto  was  born  at  Reggio,  near  which 
town  Boiardo  also  had  first  seen  the  light,  on  September 
8, 1474.  His  family  was  noble,  and  his  father,  who  sur- 
vived his  birth  about  twenty  years,  filled  many  important 
offices.  Like  the  fathers  of  Petrarch  and  Boccaccio,  he 
insisted  that  his  son  should  follow  the  profession  of  the 
law,  which  the  youth  renounced  after  five  years  of  fruit- 
less, perhaps  not  very  persevering  study.  His  father's 
death  left  Ariosto  at  the  head  of  a  large  family,  for 
which  he  had  to  provide  out  of  a  scanty  patrimony. 
He  solaced  his  cares  by  classical  studies,  which  made 
him  a  fair  Latin  poet.  About  1503  he  entered  the 
service  of  the  Cardinal  of  Este,  brother  of  the  Duke  of 


140 


ARIOSTO 


141 


Ferrara,  and  hence  a  member  of  that  house  whose  glory 
it  has  been  to  have  numbered  two  of  the  most  illustrious 
poets  of  Italy  in  its  train,  and  whose  infelicity  to  have 
derived  more  obloquy  than  honour  from  the  connection. 
Boiardo's  Orlando  Innaniorato  had  been  designed  for  the 
glorification  of  the  house  of  Este,  but  the  purpose  is  not 
sufficiently  obtrusive  to  spoil  our  pleasure  in  the  poet's 
ideal  world.  Ariosto  took  up  the  thread  of  the  narrative 
where  his  predecessor  had  dropped  it,  and  writing  in  the 
spirit  of  a  courtier,  produced  in  the  Orlando  Furioso  a 
sequel  related  to  Boiardo's  poem  much  as  Virgil's  national 
epic  on  the  wanderings  of  yEneas  is  related  to  Homer's 
artless  tale  of  the  wanderings  of  Ulysses. 

In  so  far  as  Ariosto's  objects  were  poetical  fame  and 
the  honour  of  his  native  country  they  were  attained 
to  the  full ;  but  his  toil  was  almost  vain  as  respected 
recompense  from  the  princes  for  whose  sake  he  had 
blemished  his  poem.  The  Cardinal,  a  coarse,  un- 
scrupulous man,  fitter  for  a  soldier  than  an  ecclesiastic, 
was  apparently  unable  to  discern  any  connection  be- 
tween Ruggiero's  hippogriff  and  the  glories  of  his 
descendants,  and  upon  the  publication  of  the  Orlando 
in  1510,  asked  the  poet  quite  simply  'Svhere  he  had 
been  for  all  that  rot?"  He  is  stated,  however,  to 
have  presented  Ariosto  with  a  golden  chain,  rather 
for  the  ornament  of  his  person  than  the  relief  of  his 
necessities,  as  he  could  not  venture  to  turn  it  into 
money.  Ariosto  further  incurred  his  Eminence's  dis- 
pleasure by  hesitating  to  accompany  him  on  a  mission 
to  Hungary,  and  found  it  advisable  to  exchange  his 
service  for  the  Duke's.  The  Duke,  a  prince  lavish  in 
shows,  economical  in  salaries,  thought  the  poet  abund- 
antly rewarded  by  the  governorship  of  the  Garfagnana, 


142  ITALIAN  LITERATURE 

which  it  was  necessary  to  confer  upon  somebodv.     The 
Garfagnana  was  a  wild  district   overrun   with   poetical 
b mdiUi,  readers  and  admirers  of  their  governor's  epic. 
Here  Ariosto  gained  much  honour,  but  Httle  emohiment. 
His  experience  of   his  patrons  generally  justified  his 
favourite  motto,  Pro  bono  malum.     Even  the  munificent 
Leo  X.  did  nothing  for  him  but  kiss  him  on  both  cheeks, 
and  remit  half  the  fees  upon  the  brief  that  assured  his 
copyrights,  liis  particular  friend  Cardinal  Bibbiena  pocket- 
ing the  other.     His  sole  real  benefactor  was  the  Marquis 
det  Vasto,  husband    of    the  lady   whom   we  shall   find 
celebrated  by  Luigi  TansillO;  who  settled  an  annuity  of  a 
hundred  ducats  upon  him.     Even  this  was  consideration 
for  value  to  be  received,  the   Marquis,  himself  a  poet, 
being    properly    impressed    by    the     Vixere  fortes   ante 
Aga'^nemmma   maxim.     Ariosto    acquitted  himself  of  his 
obligation  like  a  man,  comparing  liis  patron  to  Caesar, 
Nestor,  Achilles,  Nireus,  and  Ladas.     Great  as  was  the 
renown  which  his  Orlando  procured  for  him  in  his  life- 
time, its  profits  were  not  such  as  to  render  him  independ- 
ent of  patronage  ;  yet,  after  all,  he  was  able  to  boast  that 
the  modest  house  which  he  built  for  himself,  and  where 
he  died  in  1533,  was  paid  for  by  his  own  money.^     It  is 
kept  to  this  day  by  the  municipality  of  Ferrara  ;    and 
Ariosto's  manuscripts,  evincing    his    indefatigable   care 
in  the  revision  of  his  poem,  are  preserved  in  the  public 

library. 

The  chief  literary  occupations  of  his  latter  years  had 
been  the  composition  of  comedies,  the  superintendence 
of  theatrical  performances  for  the  entertainment  of  the 
Duke,  and  the  incessant  revision  of  the  Orlando  Furwso, 

1  u  parra  scd  apta  miht,  sed  nnlli  obnoxia  ;  sed  uon 
Sordida,  parta  mco  sed  tamen  aevAjkimis,^^ 


ORLANDO  FURIOSO. 


143 


enlarged  from  forty  to  forty-six  cantos.  The  last  edition 
published  under  his  own  inspection  appeared  in  1532, 
and  was  not  regarded  by  him  as  definitive.  He  also 
began  a  continuation,  intended  to  narrate  the  death  of 
Ruggiero  by  the  treachery  of  Gano,  of  wliich  only  live 
cantos  w^ere  WTitten. 

So  great  is  the  variety  of  the  Orlando  FuriosOy  that  it 
appears  difficult  at  first  to  discover  a  clue  to  a  main 
action  among  its  thronging  and  complicated  adventures. 
Ginguene  and  Panizzi,  however,  have  shown  that  one 
exists,  and  that  this  is  the  union  of  Ruggiero  and  Brada- 
mante,  the  fabulous  ancestors  of  the  house  of  Este.  All 
the  poet's  skill  is  exerted  to  keep  them  apart,  that  he  may 
bring  them  together  at  last.  Orlando,  Rinaldo,  Angelica, 
the  chief  personages  of  the  Innamorato^  have  become 
subordinate  characters ;  and,  notwithstanding  the  title 
of  the  poem,  Orlando's  madness  is  but  an  episode.  The 
unfortunate  consequence  is  the  transfer  of  the  main  in- 
terest from  personages  wiiom  Boiardo  had  made  highly 
attractive,  to  Ruggiero  and  Bradamante,  less  impressive 
in  the  hands  of  Ariosto,  whose  forte  is  rather  in  depicting 
tender  or  humorous  than  heroic  character.  It  would 
not  be  just  to  say  that  this  occasions  the  chief  disad- 
vantage of  the  poem  in  comparison  with  the  Innamorato, 
the  loss  of  the  elder  poet's  delightful  naivete.  Rather 
the  change  of  plan  and  the  falling  off  in  simplicity 
spring  from  the  same  root,  the  taste  and  character  of  the 
author. 

Ariosto  was  more  of  a  courtier  than  a  knight,  and 
thought  more  of  the  house  of  Este  than  of  the  pala- 
dins of  Charlemagne.  He  wrought  upon  Boiardo  in  the 
spirit  of  Dryden  adapting  Chaucer ;  while  his  prede- 
cessor, though  himself  courtly,  may  rather  be  likened  to 


144  ITALIAN   LITERATURE 

William  Morris.     Boiardo,  though   also   purposing  the 
panegyric  of  the  house  of  Este,  sings  for  the  delight  of 
sinking,  and  introduces  no  incongruous  fifteenth-century 
ligures  into  his  romantic  pageant.     Ariosto  mars  his  epic 
by   contemporary  allusions,  as  Spenser  and  Tennyson 
marred  theirs  by  far-fetched  allegory.     It  must  be  re- 
membered,  in  justice  to  him,  that  his  perpetual  adulation 
of  the  court  of  Ferrara  seemed  less  extravagant  then  than 
now.     To  us  the  importance  attached  to  a  family  which 
would  be  forgotten  if  Ariosto  and  Tasso  had  not  swelled 
its  retinue,  and  if  Lucrezia  Borgia  had  not  married  into 
it,  borders  on  the  absurd.     It  seems  preposterous  that 
hosts  should  be  equipped,  and  giants  and  dragons  and 
enchanters  set  in  motion,  and  paladins  despatched  on 
errands  to  the  moon,  that  Ariosto  may  compliment  a 
cardinal  whose  want  of  cuUure  rather  than  his  penetra- 
tion led  him  to  rate  these  compliments  at  their  worth. 
But  in  Ariosto's  day  that  court  was  a  bright  and  dazzling 
reality,  and  almost  every  member  of  his  immediate  circle 
depended  upon  it  for  his  bread. 

If  we  can  forget  his  servility,  or  persuade  ourselves 
to  deem  it  loyalty,  we  shall  find  little  to  censure  in 
Ariosto.  Shellev's  assertion  that  he  is  only  some- 
times  a  poet  implies  a  narrow  conception  of  the  nature 
of  poetry.  Rather  may  it  be  said  that  he  is  always  a 
poet,  always  fanciful,  always  musical,  always  elevated, 
though  not  always  to  a  very  great  altitude,  above  the 
lever  of  the  choicest  prose.  It  is  true  that  he  has 
nothing  of  the  seer  in  his  composition,  that  his  perfect 
technical  mastery  is  rarely  either  exalted  or  disturbed  by 
any  gleam  of  the  light  that  never  was  on  sea  or  land, 
that  his  poem  is  destitute  of  moral  or  patriotic  purpose, 
and  that  his  standard  in  all  things  is  that  of  his  age. 


CHARACTERISTICS  OF  ORLANDO 


US 


This  merely  proves  that  he  is  not  in  the  rank  of 
supremely  great  poets — a  position  which  he  would  not 
have  claimed  for  himself;  nor  have  his  countrymen 
paralleled  him  with  Dante.  He  is  hardly  to  be  called 
Homeric,  though  endowed  with  the  Homeric  rapidity, 
directness,  conciseness,  and,  except  when  he  volun- 
tarily turns  to  humour  and  burlesque,  much  of  the 
Homeric  nobility. 

Perhaps  the  nearest  literary  analogy  to  the  Orlando 
Fiirioso  in  another  language  is  the  Metamorphoses  of 
Ovid.  In  both  poems  appear  the  same  perspicuity  and 
facility  of  narration,  the  same  sweetness  of  versification, 
the  same  art  of  interweaving  episodes  into  a  whole. 
Ariosto's  vigour  and  directness,  nevertheless,  are  wanting 
to  Ovid,  and  the  palm  of  invention  and  of  the  delineation 
of  character  undoubtedly  belongs  to  him,  for  Ovid  was 
forbidden  to  introduce  a  new  incident,  or  vary  any  of 
the  personages  afforded  by  his  mythological  repertory. 
The  fact  that  the  Orlando  is  not,  like  the  Jerusalem,  a 
new  ^Eneidy  but  a  new  Metamorphoses^  entirely  justifies 
the  introduction  of  such  burlesque  satire  as  the  abode  of 
Discord  among  the  monks,  or  such  delightful  extrava- 
gance as  Astolfo's  flight  to  the  moon  in  quest  of  Orlando's 
brains,  resulting  in  the  recovery  of  no  inconsiderable 
portion  of  his  own.  Such  episodes  are,  indeed,  the  most 
characteristic  passages  of  the  Furioso  ;  yet  in  others,  such 
as  the  siege  of  Paris  and  the  madness  of  Orlando,  Ariosto 
shows  himself  capable  of  rising  to  epical  dignity,  which 
he  could  have  assumed  more  frequently  if  it  had  entered 
into  his  plan.  This  rather  required  the  gifts  of  the 
painter,  whether  of  natural  scenery  or  of  human  emotion, 
which  he  possessed  in  the  most  eminent  degree  ;  and  of 
the  ironic  but  kindly  observer  of  human  life,  which  he 


146 


ITALIAN   LITERATURE 


ARIOSTO  AND  TASSO 


147 


exhibited  so  fully  that  even  his  descriptions  are  less 
popular  and  admired  than  the  reflective  and  moralisini^ 
introductions  to  his  cantos.  Never  was  such  wildness  of 
imai^ination  ballasted  with  such  solid  ^ood  sense.  Yet, 
whJn  all  IS  .said,  his  most  distinctive  merit  remains  his 
unsurpassed  talent  of  exposition,  his  unfaltering  flow  of 
energetic,  perspicuous,  melodious  narrative  ;  excellence 
apparently  spontaneous  and  unstudied,  but  in  truth  due 
to  the  strenuous  revision  of  one  who  judged  himself 
severely,  and  deemed  with  Michael  Angelo  that  trifles 
made  perfection,  and  perfection  was  no  trifle.  Mr. 
Courthope,  in  an  admirable  parallel,  has  pointed  out  his 
great  superiority  as  a  narrator  to  his  disciple  Spenser, 
whose  pictures,  nevertheless,  glow  with  deeper  and  softer 
tints,  and  whose  voluminous  melody  tills  the  ear  more 
perfectly  than  x\riosto's  ringing  stanza. 

The  controversy  whether  Ariosto  or  Tasso's  poem  is 
the  greater  epic,  as  it  was  one  of  the  most  obstinately  in- 
terminable ever  raised  by  academic  pedantry,  is  also  one 
of  the  idlest.  They  belong  to  different  departments  of 
art  ;  it  would  be  as  reasonable  to  compare  a  picture 
with  a  statue.  The  question,  nevertheless,  which  of  the 
men  was  the  greater  poet,  docs  admit  of  profitable  dis- 
cussion, though  it  may  be  dithcult  to  establish  any  but 
a  subjective  criterion.  If  endowment  with  the  poetical 
temperament  is  to  be  taken  as  the  test,  the  palm  cer- 
tainly belongs  to  Tasso,  whose  actions,  thoughts,  and 
mi>f()rtuncs  are  invariably  those  of  a  poet,  and  whose 
inward  music  is  constantly  finding  expression  in  lyrical 
verse.  Ariosto's  comparatively  few  lyrics  generally  wear 
a  less  spontaneous  aspect  than  Tasso's  ;  the  incidents  of 
his  life  rather  bespeak  the  man  of  afi"airs  than  the  man 
of  books  ;  and  if  his  Orlando  had  perished,  we  should 


% 


hardly  have  surmised  how  great  a  poet  had  been  lost 
in  him. 

If,  on  the  other  hand,  the  palm  should  be  bestowed 
for  mastery  of  art,  it  seems  rather  due  to  Ariosto, 
who  handles  his  theme  with  more  vigotir,  and  has  it 
more  thoroughly  under  control.  He  is  not  obliged,  like 
Tasso,  to  embellish  his  poem  with  episodes  which,  by 
their  superior  attractiveness,  almost  eclipse  the  main 
action  :  the  few  passages  of  the  kind  in  the  Orlando  are 
strictly  subordinate,  and  not  among  its  principal  orna- 
ments. The  chief  artistic  blots  upon  his  poem  could 
not  well  have  been  avoided.  So  completely,  though 
unjustly,  has  he  overshadowed  his  predecessor  Boiardo, 
that  we  are  apt  to  forget  that  his  w^ork  is  an  example, 
unique  in  literature,  of  the  successful  continuation  of 
another's.  The  adulation  of  the  house  of  Este  was  an 
inheritance  from  his  precursor ;  it  is  only  to  be  re- 
gretted that,  contrary  to  the  example  of  Boiardo  and  the 
subsequent  practice  of  Tasso,  he  should  have  given  it 
disproportionate  prominence.  The  incurable  defect  of 
the  action  of  the  Fiifioso  is  also  a  legacy  from  the 
Innaviorato.  Ruggiero,  the  real  hero  of  Ariosto's  part  of 
the  poem,  wins  the  hand  of  Bradamante,  and  becomes 
the  ancestor  of  the  house  of  Este,  by  apostasy.  The 
poem  finds  him  a  pagan,  and  leaves  him  a  Christian. 
All  that  ingenuity  can  efl'ect  is  employed  to  extenuate  his 
de^>ertion  ;  nevertheless,  the  sympathies  of  every  reader 
must  be  with  the  Saracen  Rodomonte  when  he  appears 
in  the  last  canto  to  tax  Ruggiero  with  his  change  of 
sides,  and  necessarily  (for  otherwise  what  would  have 
become  of  the  house  of  Este  ?)  is  slain  for  his  loyalty,  to 
the  scandal  of  poetical  justice. 

That  Ariosto,  apart  from  his  boundless  invention  and 


J 


148 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE 


command  of  language  and  narrative,  was  a  true  poet,  is 
shown  by  the  extreme  beauty  of  the  majority  of  the  in- 
troductions to  his  cantos,  where  he  appears  even  more 
at  home  than  in  the  descriptions  of  the  deeds  of  prowess 
of  which  he  was  at  bottom  so  sceptical.  Another  strong 
point  is  the  number,  vividness,  and  originality  of  his 
similes,  not  in  general  copied  from  ancient  poets,  but 
peculiar  to  himself,  and  perfectly  descriptive  of  the 
object  designed  to  be  illustrated.  One  of  the  most 
apparently  characteristic  similes  of  a  great  master  of 
quaint  comparison,  the  late  Coventry  Patmore,  is  bor- 
rowed from  him.^ 

The  sense  of  Ariosto  is  easily  represented  in  English, 
but  it  is  another  matter  to  reproduce  his  felicity  of  phrase. 
The  following  stanzas  in  Miss  Ellen  Gierke's  version  are 
from  the  description  of  Angelica's  flight  from  Rinaldo  : 


(( 


Through  dark  and  fearsome  woods  she  takes  her  flighty 

By  desert  places  wild,  and  lonely  ways. 

The  stirring  of  the  lea^'fs  and  foliage  light 

Of  oak,  or  elm,  or  beech  that  softly  sways. 

Doth  startle  her  aside  in  sudden  fright. 

To  wander  here  and  there  as  in  a  maze; 

While  e7'ery  shadow  seen  on  hill  or  hollow 

Seems  to  her  fear  Rinaldds  who  doth  follow. 

As  baby  fawn,  or  tender  bleating  goat. 
Which  from  its  leafy  cradle  hath  espied 
Its  hapless  dam  seized  by  the  quivering  throaty 
By  leopard  fierce,  and  oped  her  breast  or  side, 
J- lees  from  the  brute  to  sylvan  depths  remote. 
Trembling  with  fears  by  fancy  multiplied. 
And  at  each  stump  that  she  in  passing  touches. 
Deems  that  the  monster  grasps  her  in  its  clutches. 


1  ''foUings  of  the  heart,  like  wine 

Toured  from  afiask  of  narrow  necL'^ 
See  Orlando  Furioso,  canto  xxiii.  si.  113. 


I 


MORALITY  OF  THE  ORLANDO  149 

That  day  and  night,  and  all  the  next,  sped  she 
In  circles  round  about,  she  knew  not  where. 
But  reached  at  last  a  grove  right  fair  to  see. 
Stirred  lightly  by  the  cool  and  fragrant  air. 
Two  crystal  streamlets,  munnuring  der  the  lea. 
Perennially  refreshed  the  herbage  there. 
And  a  sweet  tune  sang,  in  melodious  treble. 
Their  gentle  current,  chafed  by  fliiit  and  pebble. 

And deemijtg  that  she  here  is  safe  indeed, 
A  thousand  miles  beyond  Rinaldds  quest. 
Weary  of  summer  Ice  at  and  travel  speed. 
Resolves  she  for  brief  spell  to  take  a  rest; 
^  Mid  flowers  dismounts,  and  looses  in  the  mead 
Her  palfrey,  and  doth  of  the  rein  divest, 
To  wander  by  the  wave  pellucid  flowing, 
With  juicy  grasses  on  its  margin  growing. 

A  temptitig  bush  she  sees,  not  far  away. 
Of  thorn  a-bloom  with  roses  blushing  red, 
Which  in  the  wave  doth  glass  itself  alway. 
Screened  from  the  sun  by  spreading  oaks  overhead. 
An  empty  space  within  it  doth  display 
A  chamber  cool,  with  densest  shade  derspread, 
Where  leaves  and  branches  roof  so  close  have  woven^ 
Nor  sun  nor  glance  its  dusk  hath  ever  cloven. 

A  couch  of  softest  grass  within  the  lair 
Invites  to  rest  upon  its  herbage  sweet. 
Down  in  its  midst  doth  si?ik  the  lady  fair y 
And  lays  her  there,  and  sleeps  in  that  retreat; 
But  not  for  long,  for  shortly  she  was  ^ware 
Of  the  approaching  tread  of  comittg  feet. 
She  softly  rises,  and  through  leaves  a-quiver 
A  knight  in  armour  sees  draw  near  the  riverP 

The  morality  of  the  Orlando  Furioso^  some  licentious 

episodes  excepted  which  stand  quite  apart  from  the  main 

action,  may  be  considered  good,  being  that  of  a  refined 

and  courtly   circle   where   lofty   virtues   were  cordially 

recognised  in   theory,   however   they   might   fail   to   be 
II 


I 


148 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE 


command  of  language  and  narrative,  was  a  true  poet,  is 
shown  by  tlie  extreme  beauty  of  the  majority  of  the  in- 
troductions to  his  cantos,  where  he  appears  even  more 
at  home  than  in  the  descriptions  of  the  deeds  of  prowess 
of  which  he  was  at  bottom  so  sceptical.  Another  strong 
point  is  the  number,  vividness,  and  originality  of  his 
similes,  not  in  general  copied  from  ancient  poets,  but 
peculiar  to  himself,  and  perfectly  descriptive  of  the 
object  designed  to  be  illustrated.  One  of  the  most 
apparently  characteristic  similes  of  a  great  master  of 
quaint  comparison,  the  late  Coventry  Patmore,  is  bor- 
rowed from  him.i 

The  sense  of  Ariosto  is  easily  represented  in  English, 
but  it  is  another  matter  to  reproduce  his  felicity  of  phrase. 
The  following  stanzas  in  Miss  Ellen  Gierke's  version  are 
from  the  description  of  Angelica's  flight  from  Rinaldo  : 

"  Through  dark  and  fearsome  woods  she  takes  her  flighty 
By  desert  places  wild,  and  lonely  ways. 
The  stirring  of  the  leaves  and  foliage  light 
Of  oak,  or  elm,  or  beech  that  softly  sways, 
Doth  startle  her  aside  in  sudden  fright. 
To  wander  here  and  there  as  in  a  maze ; 
While  every  shadow  seen  on  hill  or  hollow 
Seems  to  her  fear  Rinaldds  who  doth  follow. 

As  baby  fawn,  or  tender  bleating  goat. 
Which  from  its  leafy  cradle  hath  espied 
Its  hapless  dam  seized  by  the  quivering  throaty 
By  leopard  fierce,  and  oped  her  breast  or  side, 
Heesfrom  the  brute  to  sylvan  depths  remote. 
Trembling  with  fears  by  fancy  multiplied, 
And  at  each  stump  that  she  in  passing  touches. 
Deems  that  the  monster  grasps  her  in  its  clutches. 


f 


1  ''foltings  of  the  heart,  like  untie 

Poured  from  a  flask  of  narrow  neck.^* 
See  Orlando  Furioso,  canlo  xxiii.  st.  113. 


MORALITY  OF  THE  ORLANDO  149 

That  day  and  night,  and  all  the  next,  sped  she 
In  circles  round  about,  she  knew  not  where. 
But  reached  at  last  a  grove  right  fair  to  see. 
Stirred  lightly  by  the  cool  and  fragrant  air. 
Two  crystal  streamlets,  murmuring  der  the  lea, 
Perennially  refreshed  the  herbage  there. 
And  a  sweet  tune  safig,  in  melodious  treble^ 
Their  getitlc  curre?tt,  chafed  by  flint  and  pebble. 

And  deemiftg  that  she  here  is  safe  indeed, 
A  thousand  miles  beyond  Rinaldds  quest. 
Weary  of  summer  Jieat  and  travel  speed, 
Resolves  she  for  brief  spell  to  take  a  rest; 
^  Mid  flowers  dismounts,  and  looses  in  the  mead 
Her  palfrey,  and  doth  of  the  rein  divest, 
To  wander  by  the  wave  pellucid  flowing. 
With  juicy  grasses  on  its  margin  growing. 

A  tempting  bush  she  sees,  not  far  away. 
Of  thorn  a-bloom  with  roses  blushing  red. 
Which  in  the  wave  doth  glass  itself  alway. 
Screened  from  the  sun  by  spreading  oaks  derhead. 
An  empty  space  withiji  it  doth  display 
A  chamber  cool,  with  densest  shade  derspread, 
Where  leaves  and  braftches  roof  so  close  have  woveUy 
Nor  sun  nor  glance  its  dusk  hath  ever  cloven. 

A  couch  of  softest  grass  within  the  lair 
Invites  to  rest  upon  its  herbage  szveet. 
Down  in  its  midst  doth  sink  the  lady  fair, 
And  lays  her  there,  and  sleeps  in  that  retreat; 
But  not  for  long,  for  shortly  she  was  ^ware 
Of  the  approaching  tread  of  comifig  feet. 
She  softly  rises,  and  through  leaves  a-quiver 
A  knight  in  armour  sees  draw  near  the  riverP 

The  morality  of  the  Orlando  Furioso,  some  licentious 
episodes  excepted  which  stand  quite  apart  from  the  main 
action,  may  be  considered  good,  being  that  of  a  refined 
and  courtly  circle  where  lofty  virtues  were  cordially 
recognised  in  theory,  however  they  might  fail  to  be 
II 


ISO 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE 


ARIOSTO'S  MINOR  POEMS 


151 


exemplified  in  practice.  Ariosto  does  not,  like  Tasso, 
convey  the  impression  of  a  man  above  his  time,  and  only 
depressed  to  its  level  by  unpropitious  circumstances. 
He  is  the  child  of  his  age,  at  the  summit  of  its  average 
elevation,  but  not  transcending  this.  Yet  it  would  have 
been  well  for  Italy  if  her  princes  and  statesmen  had 
generally  acted  upon  those  ideas  of  honour  and  loyalty 
which  they  found  and  doubtless  admired  in  their  favourite 
poet.  Such  precepts  as  the  following,  even  though  en- 
forced by  the  teacher's  example,  w^ere  in  their  view^  much 
too  good  for  ordinary  practice  : 

"  Bufidic  7vith  cord  is  not  so  bounds  I  wccn^ 
Or  plank  to  plank  so  riveted  by  nail, 
As  knightly  troth  that  once  hath  plighted  bcen^ 
Doth  with  the  true  and  loyal  soul  prevail. 
Nor  is  fidelity  depicted  seen. 
Save  robed  fro  ui  head  to  foot  in  candid  veil, 
Visage  cni'eloping  and  frame  and  limb, 
Since  but  one  stain  -cuould  make  her  wholly  dim. 

Pure  must  she  ever  be,  and  free  from  spot. 
If  to  one  onlv  or  to  thousands  plighted ; 
Nor  less  if  vcnced  in  woodland  wild  or  grot 
Far  from  men's  -u'ays  and  dwellings  disunited^ 
Than  luhere  t lie  Judge  doth  duly  law  allots 
And  deeds  are  sealed,  and  testimonies  cited. 
Nor  oath  she  needs,  or  like  appeal  to  Heaven; 
Enough  the  solemn  word  once  gravely  given. 

His  pledge  chivalric,  and  the  faith  he  gave, 
Zerbin  in  ei'ery  circumstance  defended; 
But  n<fer  did  prove  himself  their  duteous  slave 
More  than  when  no7c  disconsolate  he  wended 
With  this  detested  hag,  whom  like  the  grave 
His  soul  abhorred:  by  plague  or  death  attended^ 
Full  sooner  had  he  fared ;  but  honour's  claim 
Bound  iiim  to  tJiat  objectionable  dame.^^ 


> 


To  appreciate  Zerbino's  fidelity  to  his  word,  it  must 
be  known  that,  having  been  vanquished  in  a  joust,  he 
has  been  compelled  to  vow  to  escort  a  hideous  old 
wmiian  of  singular  depravity,  and  to  maintain  her  beauty 
and  virtue  against  all  comers,  with  the  prospect  of  bemg 
killed  in  her  service.  A  more  comic  situation  will  hardly 
be  found  in  any  of  the  romances. 

Ariosto's  comedies  must  be  considered  along  with  the 
Italian  drama  in  general  The  most  important  of  his 
minor  poetical  works  are  the  Satires,  rather  in  the  vem 
of  Horace  than  of  Juvenal,  and,  in  truth,  hardly  satires  at 
all  in  any  proper  sense  of  the  term.  They  are  good 
metrical  talk  on  light  subjects,  elegant,  chatty,  and  dis- 
cursive.  His  own  disappointments  are  alluded  to  very 
good-humouredly.  His  lyrical  pieces  are  not  remark- 
able, except  one  impressive  sonnet,  in  which  he  appears 
to   express   compunction   for    the    irregularities    of    his 

life  : 

"  How  may  I  deem  That  thou  in  heaven  wilt  hear, 
O  Lord  divine,  my  fruitless  prayer  to  Thee, 
If  for  all  clamour  of  the  tongue  Thoxi  see 

That  yet  unto  the  heart  the  net  is  dear? 

Sunder  it  Thou,  who  all  behold' st  so  clear, 
Nor  heed  the  stubborn  wilPs  oppugnancy, 
And  this  do  Thou  perform,  ere,  fraught  with  me, 

Charon  to  Tartarus  his  pinnace  steer. 

By  habitude  of  ill  that  veils  Thy  light. 

And  sensual  lure,  and  paths  in  error  trod, 
Evil  from  good  no  more  I  know  aright. 

Ruth  for  frail  soul  submissive  to  the  rod 
May  move  a  mortal;  in  her  own  despite 
To  drag  her  heavenward  is  work  of  God.^^ 

Late  in  life  the  poet  married  ;  whether  he  also  reformed 
seems  doubtful.     His  amours,  however,  were  unaccom- 


IS2 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE 


TRISSINO 


153 


panied  by  tragedy  or  scandal.  In  fact,  this  most  wildly 
imaginative  of  the  Italian  poets  seems  to  have  had  less 
than  most  poets  of  the  poetic  temperament,  and  the 
amiability  for  which  he  is  universally  praised  was  not 
accompanied  by  any  remarkable  acuteness  of  feeling. 
His  virtues  were  those  of  an  excellent  man  of  the  world  ; 
he  was  liberal,  courteous,  sensible,  just,  and  sincere. 

The  success  of  the  OrUyido  Furioso,  which  Bernardo 
Tasso,  writing  in  1559,  affirms  to  be  better  known  and 
more  talked  of  than  Homer,  naturally  produced  the  same 
effect  as  the  popularity  of  Scott  and  Byron  produced  in 
England—*'  All  could  raise  the  flower,  for  all  had  got  the 
seed."     The  two  most  important  of  these  imitations,  the 
Girone  il  Cortese  oi  Luigi  Alamanni  and  the  Amadigi  of 
Bernardo  Tasso— both  good  poets,  to  be  mentioned  again 
in  other  departments  of  literature— resemble  Pygmalion's 
image  before  the  interposition  of  Venus;   all  the  con- 
stituents of  a  fine  poem  are  there,  but  the  breath  of  life 
is  wanting.     ''The   Girone;'   says  Ginguene,   "is  a  very 
dignified,  very  rational,  and  generally  Wv.'11-written  poem, 
but   cold   and    consequently    somewhat    tiresome."      If 
there  is   more    warmth   in   the   Amadigi,   there   is   also 
more  loquacity,  and  the  power  of  the  author,  an  excel- 
lent writer  on  a  small  scale,  is  quite  inadequate  to  sustain 
continuous   interest   through   a   hundred   cantos.      The 
comparison   which   he    necessarily   courts  with  the  old 
romance  of  Vasco  Lobeira,  the  best  work  of  its  class,  is 
always  unfavourable  to  him.     His  copious  employment 
of    elfin    machinery    gave    him  opportunities  of  which 
he  failed  to  avail  himself.     The  best  of  him  as  an  epic 
writer  is  his  gift  of  brilliant  description.     The  younger 
Tasso's  Rinaldo  is  a  very  extraordinary  production  for  a 
youth  of  eighteen,  but  the  impulse  towards  the  chival- 


I 


\ 


\ 


rous  epic  was  exhausted  by  his  time,  and  he  wisely 

found  another  way  of  rivalling  Ariosto.    The  Orlandtno 

and  the  Ricciardetto  belong    rather  to  the  class  of  the 

mock  heroic,  to  be  treated  hereafter.    The  names  of  a 

few  of  the  most  remarkable  bona-fide  attempts  at  chiva Iric 

poetry  must  suffice  :  the   Guerino  il  Meschino  of  Tullia 

d'Aragona,   the    Ogkr  the    Dane    of    Cassiodoro   Narm, 

the   Death  of  Ruggiero   of    Giambatista   Pescatore,   the 

Triumphs  of  Charlemagne  of  Francesco  de'  Lodovici,  the 

First  Exploits  oj   Orlando  of  Lodovico  Dolce,  and  the 

Anzdica  Innamorata  of  Vincenzo  Brusantmi. 

Apart  from  the  poems  of  the  chivalric  cycles,   Italy 
witnessed   but  few   attempts   at   epic   in   the   first  half 
of   the    sixteenth   century.      Of   the   author   of   one   of 
these,  however,  it  might  be  said,  Magnis  exctdtt  austs 
Giovanni    Giokgio    Trissixo   xvr.s    born    of    a    noble 
family  at  Vicenza   in   1478.      He   repaired  the    defects 
of  a  neglected   education   with   singular   mdustry,  and 
endeared  himself  to  the  two  Medici  Popes,   Leo  and 
Clement,  who  entrusted  him  with  important  diplomatic 
missions'.     His  most   successful  poetical  work,  the  tra- 
gedy of  Sophonisba  (1515X  brought  him  great  fame,  and 
actually  does  mark  an  era  in  the  history  of  the  drama. 
He  wrote  much  on  grammar,  but  could  effect  only  one 
reform    the  distinction  between  i  and  /  and  u  and  v. 
After  his  retirement  from  diplomacy  Trissino  lived  many 
years  among  his  fellow-citizens,  wealthy  and  honoured ; 
but  his  later   years  were  embittered  by  a  painful   and 
disastrous  lawsuit  with   his   son   by   his  first   marriage. 

He  died  in  1549. 

Trissino  had  commenced  in  1525  the  composition 
of  his  epic.  The  Deliverance  of  Italy  from  the  Goths, 
which  was  published  in  1547  and  1548.      It   has   some 


1 


IS2 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE 


panied  by  tragedy  or  scandal.  In  fact,  this  most  wildly 
imaginative  of  the  Italian  poets  seems  to  have  had  less 
than  most  poets  of  the  poetic  temperament,  and  the 
amiability  for  which  he  is  universally  praised  was  not 
accompanied  by  any  remarkable  acuteness  of  feeling. 
His  virtues  were  those  of  an  excellent  man  of  the  world  ; 
he  was  liberal,  courteous,  sensible,  just,  and  sincere. 

The  success  of  the  OrLmdo  Furioso,  which  Ik^rnardo 
Tasso,  writing  in   1559,  affirms  to  be  better  known  and 
more  talked  of  than  Homer,  naturally  produced  the  same 
effect  as  the  popularity  of  Scott  and  Byron  produced  in 
England— *' All  could  raise  the  flower,  for  all  had  got  the 
seed."     The  two  most  important  of  these  imitations,  the 
Girone  il  Cortese  of  Luigi  Alamanni  and  the  Amadigi  of 
Bernardo  Tasso— both  good  poets,  to  be  mentioned  again 
in  other  departments  of  literature— resemble  Pygmalion's 
image  before  the  interposition  of  Venus  ;   all  the  con- 
stituents of  a  fine  poem  are  there,  but  the  breath  of  life 
is  wanting.     "The   Girone;'  says  Ginguene,   "is  a  very 
dignified,  very  rational,  and  generally  w.^U-written  poem, 
but  cold   and    consequently    somewhat    tiresome."      If 
there  is   more    warmth   in   the   Amadigi^   there   is   also 
more  loquacity,  and  the  power  of  the  author,  an  excel- 
lent writer  on  a  small  scale,  is  quite  inadequate  to  sustain 
continuous   interest   through    a   hundred   cantos.      The 
comparison   which   he   necessarily   courts  with  the  old 
romance  of  Vasco  Lobeira,  the  best  work  of  its  class,  is 
always  unfavourable  to  him.     His  copious  employment 
of    elfin    machinery    gave    him  opportunities  of  which 
he  failed  to  avail  himself.     The  best  of  him  as  an  epic 
writer  is  his  gift  of  brilliant  description.    The  younger 
Tasso's  Rinaldo  is  a  very  extraordinary  production  for  a 
youth  of  eighteen,  but  the  impulse  towards  the  chival- 


1 


TRISSINO 


153 


rous  epic  was  exhausted  by  his  time,  and  he  wisely 
found  another  way  of  rivalling  Ariosto.  The  Orlandzno 
and  the  Ricciardetto  belong  rather  to  the  class  of  the 
mock  heroic,  to  be  treated  hereafter.  The  names  of  a 
few  of  the  most  remarkable  bona-fide  attempts  at  chiva Inc 
poetry  must  suffice  :  the  Guerino  il  Meschino  of  TuUia 
d'Aragona,  the  Ogier  the  Dane  of  Cassiodoro  Narm, 
the  Death  of  Ruggiero  of  Giambatista  Pescatore,  the 
Triumphs  of  Charlemagne  of  Francesco  de'  Lodovici,  the 
First  Exploits  oj  Orlando  of  Lodovico  Dolce,  and  the 
Angelica  Innamorata  of  Vincenzo  Brusantini. 

Apart  from  the  poems  of   the  chivalric  cycles,   Italy 
witnessed   but  few   attempts   at   epic   in   the   first  half 
of   the   sixteenth   century.      Of   the   author   of   one   of 
these,  however,  it  might  be  said.  Magnis  excidit  ausis. 
Giovanni   Giorgio    Tkissino   was    born    of    a   noble 
family  at  Vicenza   in   1478.      He   repaired   the   defects 
of  a  neglected   education   with   singular   mdustry,  and 
endeared  himself  to  the  two   Medici  Popes,   Leo  and 
Clement,  who  entrusted  him  with  important  diplomatic 
missions.     His  most   successful  poetical  work,  the  tra- 
gedy of  Sophonisba  (1515),  brought  him  great  fame,  and 
actually  does  mark  an  era  in  the  history  of  the  drama. 
He  wrote  much  on  grammar,  but  could  effect  only  one 
reform,  the  distinction  between  i  and  /  and  u  and  v. 
After  his  retirement  from  diplomacy  Trlssino  lived  many 
years  among  his  fellow-citizens,  wealthy  and  honoured ; 
but  his  later  years  were  embittered  by  a  painful  and 
disastrous  lawsuit  with   his  son   by   his  first   marriage. 

He  died  in  1549. 

Trissino  had  commenced  in  1525  the  composition 
of  his  epic,  The  Deliverance  of  Italy  from  the  Goths, 
which  was  published  in  1547  and  1548.      It   has   some 


^ 


I 


154 


ITAIJAN   LITERATURi: 


CIIIVALRIC  POETRY 


155 


literary  interest  as  the  lirst  attempt  to  wri'e  Itali.in 
cp\c  poetry  in  IMank  vi  inc.  but  its  Ljreat  misfortune  is 
io  be  in  verse  of  any  kuid.  The  ihction  is  i;oo(l,  the 
exposition  simple  ami  elear  ;  if  turned  into  prose  it 
wouUl  make  a  pleasant  story  iov  yt)iitli,  something  like 
Fenelon's  IWrm^h/n/s.  Hut  how  a  man  of  Trissino's  culti- 
vation could  have  [H'rsuaded  himself  that  a  mere  metrical 
form,  and  this  neither  artful  nor  tuneful,  could  turn 
prose  into  poetry,  is  indeed  ditVicult  to  understand.  The 
disyllabic  termination  oi  the  lines — almost  inevitable  in 
Italian — is  not  ctnuhicive  to  metrical  majesty  at  the  best; 
and  Trissino  seems  to  have  had  no  idea  of  cadence  or 
varietv.  and  t(^  have  been  content  if  he  could  scan  his 
hues  upon  his  luii^ers.  There  is  no  inspiration,  and  no 
pretence  to  inspiration,  from  exordium  to  peroration  of 
his  sober  epic  ;  his  Pegasus  is  not  only  a  pack-horse,  but 
a  pack-horse  without  bells. 

In  truth,  the  displacement  of  the  Goths,  making  room 
for  the  Pope,  tlie  Lombard  and  the  Byzantine  Exarch, 
was  no  deliverance  for  Italy,  but  lier  great  misfortune. 
A  poet,  however,  is  not  obliged  like  a  historian  to 
distinguish  nicely  between  Theodoric  and  Alaric  ;  and 
Trissino,  with  all  his  pedantry,  might  have  ranked  as 
a  bard  if  he  could  have  felt  as  a  patriot  ;  if  he  could 
have  depicted  the  Italy  of  the  Goths  as  the  prototype  of 
the  Italy  of  his  own  age,  rent  amid  French  and  Spaniards 
and  Germans.  Whether  he  conceived  the  idea  or  not,  he 
could  not  or  dared  not  give  it  utterance.  He  nevertheless 
energetically  denounced  the  abuses  of  the  Papacy  by  a 
prophecy  put  into  the  mouth  of  an  angel. 

The  history  of  chivalric  poetry  is  especially  interest- 
ing, a-  it  in  all  probability  exactly  repeats  that  of  the 
Homeric  epic.    While  the  great  events,  the  siege  of  Troy 


and   the   Saracen    invasion    of    France,  are   b;  iiig   really 
enacted,  we  have   no  l)oetry  at  all.     After  two  or  tlirec 
centuries    ballads    appear,    disliguring    genuine    history, 
and   shifting    its    centre    of    gravity    to    incidents    unim- 
portant in  tliemselves,  but  susceptible  of  poetical  treat- 
ment.     After    two    or    three    more,    poets    arise   who 
embellish   these   romances,  bestow   poetical   form   upon 
them,  and  work  tliem  into  consistent  wlioles.     Had  Italy 
been  no  further  advanced  than  Greece  at  the  correspond- 
ing epoch,  the  poems  of  Boiardo  and  Ariosto  would  have 
braved  two  centuries  of  oral  recitation,  and  come  much 
corrupted   and    interpolated    into    the    hands    of    some 
Aristarchus  who  would  have  given  them  their  final  form. 
The  invention  of  printing  suppressed  this  ultimate  stage 
of  development,  but  encouraged  the  growth  of  imitators, 
whom  it  preserved  from  annihilation,  while  unable  to 
preserve  them  from  oblivion. 


I 


MACHIAVELLI 


157 


i 


CHAPTER  XII 

MACHIAVELLI  AND  GUICCIARDINI 

We  have  now  traversed  nearly  three  centuries  of  ItaHan 
literature  without  encountering  one  really  great  prose- 
writer,  Boccaccio  only  excepted.  Unquestionably  the 
development  of  Italian  prose  was  retarded  by  the  cul- 
tivation of  Latin,  which  deprived  it  of  ornaments  in 
Petrarch,  Pontano,  and  /Eneas  Sylvius — to  say  nothing 
of  the  buried  talent  which  the  example  of  such  writers 
would  have  called  into  activity.  With  every  allowance 
on  these  accounts,  it  is  still  remarkable  how  generally 
the  path  of  the  historian  of  early  Italian  literature 
lies  amid  the  flowers  of  poetry  and  fiction.  But  the 
time  had  now  come  when,  as  in  Greece,  the  national 
genius  w^as  about  to  assert  itself  in  prose,  and,  also  as  in 
Greece,  the  movement  was  heralded  by  historians.  After 
a  long  interval,  due  to  the  exclusive  cultivation  of  ancient 
models,  the  Italian  Herodotus,  Giovanni  Villani,  was  to 
be  followed  by  two  men  who  might  dispute  the  character 
of  the  Italian  Thucydides,  who  at  all  events  belonged  to 
that  invaluable  class  of  historians  who,  like  Thucydides, 
Polybius,  and  Procopius,  are  statesmen  too,  and  par- 
ticipators in  the  events  of  which  they  are  the  narrators 
and  the  judges.  This  advantage  was  possessed  in  an 
eminent  degree  by  Fraxcesco  Guicciakdixi,  the  his- 
torian  of  contemporary   times;    and   though   NiccOLO 

156 


"iii 


MACHIAVELLI  did  not  write  his  principal  work  as  a 
contemporary,  his  knowledge  of  the  Florentine  con- 
stitution was  so  intimate  as  almost  to  invest  him  with 
the  authority  of  an  eye-witness  of  the  Florentine 
revolutions  of  the  past. 

Niccolo  Machiavelli,  the  first  Italian  and  almost  the 
first  modern  to  display  eminent  genius  as  an  historical 
and  political  writer,  was  born  at  Florence,  May  3,  1469. 
His  family  had  been  illustrious  for  public  services ;  his 
father,  whom  he  lost  at  sixteen,  was  a  jurist ;  his  mother 
was  a  poetess.  Little  is  known  of  his  life  until  we  find 
him  in  1494  secretary  to  Marcello  Virgilio,  a  learned  man 
who  four  years  afterwards  became  head  of  the  chancery 
of  the  Republic,  a  post  somewhat  resembling  Milton's 
Latin  Secretaryship  under  the  Commonwealth,  but  allow- 
ing more  active  participation  in  the  business  of  diplomacy. 
Machiavelli  rose  along  with  his  patron,  and  in  1500  was 
entrusted  with  a  mission  to  France.  In  the  following 
year  he  had  a  more  arduous  part  to  play  as  envoy  to 
Cccsar  Borgia,  then  consolidating  his  power  in  the 
Romagna,  but  for  the  moment  pressed  with  great  diffi- 
culties. Machiavelli's  reports  of  his  mission  have  been 
preserved,  and  attest  the  impression  made  upon  him 
by  Caesar's  supremacy  in  ability  and  villainy,  which  con- 
tinued to  fascinate  him  when  years  afterwards  he  com- 
posed his  manual  of  political  statecraft. 

Judged  in  the  sinister  light  which  his  waitings 
have  seemed  to  throw  back  upon  his  actions,  he  has 
been  accused  of  having  counselled  and  devised  the 
coup  by  which  Caesar  destroyed  his  treacherous  con- 
dottieri  at  Sinigaglia,  as  if  the  Borgia  needed  any 
tuition  for  an  exploit  of  this  nature.  He  is  also 
censured  for  recording  it   without  disapproval ;    but  if 


Jm 


158 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE 


Ccxsar  had  never  done  anything  worse  than  rid  the 
Roniagna  of  its  vermin,  history  would  not  be  severe 
with  him.  Two  years  later,  employed  upon  a  mission 
to  Rome,  he  beheld  Cnesar's  tall,  and  the  cL'vation  of 
Pope  Julius,  whom  he  accompanied  on  yet  another 
mission  to  the  conquest  of  Bologna.  He  was  also 
despatched  about  this  time  on  embassies  to  Germany 
and  France,  and  his  observations  on  the  circumstances 
and  characteristics  of  both  nations  exhibit  great  saga- 
city. Soon  afterwards  the  affairs  of  the  Republic  be- 
came troubled,  hemmed  in  as  she  was  between  the 
transalpine  powers  and  the  Pope  and  the  exiled  Medici. 
Machiavelli  was  actively  engaged  in  organising  her 
military  resources,  but  his  efforts  were  fruitless.  The 
restoration  of  the  Medici  was  effected  in  September  151 2. 
Machiavelli  lost  his  employments,  and  soon  afterwards, 
upon  suspicion  of  participation  in  a  conspiracy,  was 
thrown  into  prison,  tortured,  and  owed  his  deliverance 
to  an  amnesty  granted  as  an  act  of  grace  by  the 
Medicean   Pope   Leo  upon  his  election  in    15 13. 

He  retired  to  a  small  estate,  where,  as  he  tells  us  in  a 
most  interesting  letter  which  lias  reached  our  times,  he 
consoled  himself  with  the  study  of  the  ancients,  familiar 
intercourse  with  his  rustic  neighbours,  and  the  composi- 
tion of  liis  Prince.  The  chief  purpose  of  this  famous  work 
certainly  was  not  to  recommend  himself  to  the  Medici,  but 
he  would  wilHngly  have  made  it  subservient  to  that  end. 
They  neglected  him,  however,  until  1519,  when  Cardinal 
Medici,  afterwards  Pope  Clement  VII.,  called  upon  him 
for  a  memoir  on  the  best  method  of  administering  the 
Florentine  government,  in  which  Machiavelli  showed 
much  dexterity  in  reconciling  the  interests  of  the  house 
of  Medici  with  the  interests  of  his  country.     His  advice 


THE  PRINCE 


159 


was  not  followed  ;  but  the  Cardinal  commissioned  him 
to  write  the  history  of  Florence.  He  had  previously 
employed  his  leisure  in  the  production  of  his  memorable 
discourses  on  Livy,  his  comedy  the  Ma7idragola^  and  his 
life  of  Castruccio  Castracani.  In  1527  he  was  employed 
in  fortifying  Florence  against  an  apprehended  attack  of 
the  Imperial  army,  which  fell  upon  Rome,  and  he  after- 
wards accompanied  the  forces  sent  to  make  a  show  of 
delivering  the  Pope.  During  his  absence  the  Medicean 
government  was  overthrown,  an  event  highly  agreeable 
to  his  secret  wishes ;  but  his  compliances  had  rendered 
him  odious  to  the  patriotic  party,  and  he  returned  to  his 
native  city  to  find  himself  the  object  of  general  aversion 
and  suspicion.  His  mortification  probably  hastened  his 
death,  which  took  place  on  June  21,  1527. 

Of  all  Machiavelli's  writings  the  Prince  is  the  most 
famous,  and  deservedly,  for  it  is  the  most  characteristic. 
Few  subjects  of  literary  discussion  have  occasioned 
more  controversy  than  the  purpose  of  this  celebrated 
book.  Some  have  beheld  in  it  a  manual  for  tyrants, 
like  the  memoirs  of  Tiberius,  so  diligently  perused  by 
Domitian  ;  others  have  regarded  it  as  a  refined  irony 
upon  tyranny,  on  the  sarcastic  plan  of  Swift's  Direc- 
tions to  Servants,  if  so  humble  an  analogy  be  permissible. 
From  various  points  of  view  it  might  alternately  pass  for 
either,  but  its  purpose  is  accurately  conveyed  by  neither 
interpretation.  Machiavelli  was  a  sincere  though  too 
supple  a  republican,  and  by  no  means  desired  the  uni- 
versal prevalence  of  tyranny  throughout  Italy.  If  he 
had  written  with  the  sole  view  of  ingratiating  himself 
with  the  Medici — probably  in  fact  a  subordinate  motive 
with  him,  and  the  rather  as  there  actually  was  a  project 
for  investing  Giuliano  de'  Medici  with  the  sovereignty  of 


I  Go 


ITALIAN   LITERATURE 


the  Romagna,  the  theatre  of  Ccxsar  Borgia's  exploits— he 
would  have  been  much  more  earnest  in  pressing  it  upon 
their  attention.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  satire  had  been 
his  chief  object,  this  would  have  been  more  mordant  and 
poignant ;  his  power  of  contemptuous  irony  is  only  re- 
vealed in  the  short  chapter  on  the  Papal  monarchy.  His 
aim  probably  was  to  show  how  to  build  up  a  princi- 
pality capable  of  expelling  the  foreigner  and  restoring 
the  independence  of  Italy.  But  this  intention  could  not 
be  safely  expressed,  and  hence  his  work  seems  repul- 
sive, because  the  reason  of  state  which  he  propounds 
as  an  apology  for  infringing  the  moral  code  appears  not 
patriotic,  but  purely  selfish. 

In  our  day  we  have  seen  Italian  independence  won  by 
appeals  to  the  patriotism  of  the  nation  at  large.    This  was 
impossible  in  Machiavelli's  time  ;  nor,  had  it  been  other- 
wise, would  his  lips  have  been  touched  with  the  live  coal 
of  a  Mazzini.    He  could  only  speak  as  a  politician  to  poli- 
ticians, and  addressing  himself  as  it  were  to  a  body  of 
scientific  experts,  he  designedly  excludes  all  considera- 
tions of  morality.     His  treatise  appears  antiquated  in  our 
day,  when  the  national  conscience  is  as  easily  manipulated 
as  the  conscience  of  the  individual ;  in  oligarchical  ages 
it  passed  not  unreasonably  for  a  perfect  manual  of  state- 
craft, and  exercised  great  influence  upon  the  statesmen 
of  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries.      Frederick 
the  Great  assailed  it  vehemently  in  his  youth,  but  lived 
to  compliment  it  by  what  has  been   described  as  the 
sincerest  form  of  flattery.    In  Frederick's  century,  when 
public  affairs  actually  were  in  the  hands  of  a  few  able 
rulers,  it  was  worth   attacking   and  defending  ;    in  the 
present  democratic  age,  when  a  statesman  who  squared 
his  conduct  by  its  maxims  would  soon  find  himself  the 


DISCOURSES  ON  LIVY 


i6l 


object  of  popular  odium,  its  interest,  except  as  regards 
its  weighty  plea  for  a  popular  army,  is  mainly  historical 
and  psychological.  There  is  an  intimate  connection 
between  the  Prince  and  the  seven  books  on  the  Art  of 
War,  written  about  1520.  In  the  Prince  Machiavelli 
insists  particularly  upon  the  part  which  the  habit  of 
relying  upon  treacherous  and  mutinous  mercenaries, 
and  the  consequent  decay  of  public  spirit  among  the 
citizens,  had  had  in  bringing  about  the  ruin  of  the 
Italian  states.  In  the  Art  of  War  he  shows  how  the 
citizen  army  he  recommends  is  to  be  organised  and  led 
in  battles  and  sieges.  His  experience  of  military  affairs 
as  an  eye-witness,  as  well  as  an  administrator,  had  been 
considerable,  and  he  is  by  no  means  to  be  slighted  as  a 
tactical  writer ;  but  the  military  art  was  on  the  eve  of 
great  changes,  which  rendered  much  of  his  wisdom 
obsolete. 

The  Discourses  on  Livy's  Decades  occupy  a  middle 
position  between  political  and  historical  science.  They 
are  entirely  grounded  on  the  study  of  Livy ;  but  their 
main  importance  consists  not  in  the  commentary  upon 
the  transactions  Livy  has  related,  but  in  the  application 
of  these  to  the  general  principles  of  politics  and  to  the 
circumstances  of  the  writer's  own  country,  They  may 
be  defined  as  in  some  sort  the  Prince  rewritten  on  a 
larger  scale,  and  copiously  illustrated  by  historical  ex- 
amples ;  but  the  effect  is  much  more  pleasing,  In  the 
other  book  Machiavelli  appears  as  the  mere  scientific 
analyst  of  politics,  and  his  real  purpose  might  be 
reasonably  questioned  ;  but  the  Discourses  leave  no 
doubt  of  his  genuine  patriotism  and  of  his  preference 
of  morality  to  obliquity,  except  where,  as  it  seems  to 
him,  the  interest  of  the  state  interferes.     The  problem 


l62 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE 


of  the  permissibility  of  an  act  reprehensible  in  the  ab- 
stract, but  required  by  the  safety  of  the  state — as,  for 
example,  Mohammed  Ali's  massacre  of  the  Mamelukes — 
is  a  very  diihcult  one,  and  Machiavelli  cannot  be  fairly 
judged  from  the  standpoint  of  the  nineteenth  century. 
He  had  not  seen  the  trial  and  failure  of  his  ideal 
prince  on  a  colossal  scale  in  the  person  of  Napoleon. 
It  was  a  cardinal  error  of  his  to  deny  a  capacity 
of  improvement  to  human  nature  and  to  assume  that 
mankind  would  be  essentially  the  same  in  all  ages. 
We  see,  on  the  contrary,  that  the  general  standard  of 
righteousness  has  been  greatly  raised  since  his  time  ; 
and  that,  even  if  this  were  not  so,  the  conditions  of 
modern  society  are  adverse  to  Machiavellian  policy  :  to 
import  this  perception,  however,  into  the  criticism  of  his 
work  would  be  but  to  reverse  his  own  mistake.  Many 
other  criticisms  might  be  addressed  to  him  :  he  did  not, 
for  example,  foresee  tliat  another  sjt  of  patriots,  from 
their  own  point  of  view,  might  arise,  whose  conception 
of  the  summum  bonum  in  polity  would  be  entirely  different 
from  his  own  ;  and  that  within  a  few  years  his  maxims 
might  serve  as  an  arsenal  for  the  Jesuits,  whose  objects 
would  have  been  his  utter  abomination.  With  all  his 
faults  and  oversights,  nothing  can  deprive  Machiavelli 
of  the  glory  of  having  been  tlie  modern  Aristotle  in 
politics,  the  first,  or  at  least  the  hrst  considerable  writer 
v^ho  derived  a  practical  philosophy  from  history,  and 
exalted  statecraft  into  science. 

Macliiavelli's  History  of  Florence  is  not,  like  his  Dis- 
courses, a  work  of  profound  thought,  nor  is  it  authori- 
tative in  any  respect.  It  rather  exhibits  him  as  the 
elegant  and  accomplished  man  of  letters,  and  is  perhaps 
the  first  successful  restoration  of  the  classical  style  of 


HISTORY  OF  FLORENCE 


163 


history  to  a  European  vernacular.  His  great  contem- 
porary Guicciardini  had  indeed  anticipated  him  with  a 
fragment  on  the  same  subject,  but  this  long  remained 
unpublished,  and  it  is  not  likely  that  Machiavelli  ever 
saw  it.  Machiavelli  has  not  delved  deep  for  materials ; 
mucli  of  the  early  part  of  his  history  is  taken  almost 
literally  from  Flavio  Biondo  and  other  predecessors. 
He  has  sometimes  departed  unjustifiably  from  strict 
matter  of  fact,  not  by  invention  or  serious  misrepresen- 
tation, but  by  accentuating  and  slightly  modifying  actual 
incidents  to  give  them  the  particular  colour  he  desires. 
In  the  main,  however,  his  work  is  a  faithful  as  well  as 
an  animated  picture  of  the  public  life  of  a  community 
in  its  characteristics  more  nearly  akin  to  the  ancient 
commonwealth  of  Athens  than  any  the  earth  has  seen 
since  this  disappeared  from  her  face.  The  quality  which 
will  preserve  even  a  bad  history,  and  without  which  a 
good  one  will  only  live  as  a  book  of  reference,  is  never 
absent  from  MachiavelH's — he  entertains  while  he  in- 
structs. His  work,  which  w^as  composed  after  1520  by 
order  of  Cardinal  Giulio  de'  Medici,  is  divided  into  eight 
books,  and  extends  from  the  beginning  of  Florentine 
history  to  the  death  of  Lorenzo  de'  Medici  in  1492. 
The  intimate  connection  of  Florence  with  the  general 
course  of  Italian  politics  leads  to  frequent  digressions 
and  copious  notices  of  neighbouring  states.  Another 
historical  work  of  Machiavelli's,  the  Life  of  Castruccio 
Castracani,  Prince  of  Lucca  in  the  fourteenth  century, 
is  little  more  than  a  romance,  in  which  he  has  endea- 
voured to  depict  the  ideal  soldier  and  statesman. 

Machiavelli's  plays  and  poems  will  be  noticed  else- 
where. They  in  no  respect  detract  from  his  reputation. 
He  came  nearer  than  any  contemporary,  except  Leonardo 


1 64 


ITALIAN   LITERATURE 


GUICCIARDINI 


i6s 


da  Vinci,  to  approving  himself  a  universal  genius.  No 
man  of  his  time  stands  higher  intellectually,  and  his 
want  of  moral  elevation  is  largely  redeemed  by  his 
ample  endowment  with  the  one  virtue  chiefly  needful 
to  an  Italian  in  his  day,  but  of  which  too  many  Italians 
were  destitute — patriotism. 

Patriotism    cannot    be    denied    to    Machiavelli's   great 
counterpart,    Francesco    Guicciardini,    and    if    it    seems 
colder    and    more    stained    by    unworthy    subserviency 
and    political    cynicism,    it    must    be   remembered    that 
these  defects  are  the  defects  of  the   qualities  in  which 
Guicciardini    surpassed    his    rival.      Machiavelli    was    a 
genius  of   the    creative    order,  and   hence,  with  all  his 
astuteness,  occasionally  somewhat  Utopian  ;  his  life  was 
free,  and  his  muse  licentious.     Guicciardini  had  a  great 
practical  genius,  infallible  within  a  narrow  sphere.     He 
does  not  invent  or  generalise  ;  his  wisdom  comes  mainly 
by  experience,  and  he  accepts  things  for  what  they  are. 
**  His  originality,"  says  Signor  Villari,  "though  doubtless 
considerable,  was  devoted  to  giving  an  exact  and  most 
lucid  shape  to  the  current  doctrines  of  his  day."     "A 
sound   judgment,"   he   himself   says  in   his  Ricordi^   *'  is 
better  than  a  pregnant  wit."     He  is  correct  in  all  the 
relations  of  life,  and  has  not  the  least  turn  for  writing 
comedies.      Machiavelli,  after   all   his   experiences,  still 
hopes  like  an  enchanted  maiden  for  the  ideal  prince. 
Guicciardini  knows  that  there  is  none  such,  and  that, 
even  if  there  were,  the  barbarians  would  be  too  strong 
for   him.      He   coldly  accepts   the   situation   and   hires 
himself  out   to  a  bad  Government,  with   this  redeem- 
ing quality,  that  it  is  still  a  Government  of  Italians  by 
Italians.     It  may  be  said  that  Machiavelli  was  willing  to 
enter  the  service  of  the  Medici,  and  such  is  the  fact;  but 


f 


Florence  had  owed  glorious  days  to  Cosmo  and  Lorenzo, 
and  Machiavelli  could  never  have  thought  or  written  of 
them  as  Guicciardini  did  of  his  Papal  employers  : 

"  No  one  can  have  a  stronger  detestation  than  mine  for 
the  avarice^  ambition^  and  sloth  of  the  priesthood.  Never- 
theless ^  the  position  I  have  always  held  with  sevei-al pontiffs 
has  compelled  me  to  love  them  for  mine  own  advantage  ;  and 
but  for  this  consideration  I  should  have  loved  Martin  Luther 
as  myself  not  for  the  purpose  of  freeing  myself  from  the 
laws  introduced  by  the  Christian  religion^  as  it  is  generally 
interpreted  and  understood^  but  in  order  to  see  this  herd  of 
wretches  reduced  to  their  proper  conditiony  namely ^  that  of 
their  being  left  either  without  vices  or  without  authority!' 

It  had  not  always  been  so.  The  Papal  satellite  had 
been  a  trusted  envoy  of  the  Florentine  Government. 
Born  in  1483,  he  had  studied  law  at  Ferrara  and  Padua, 
become  an  advocate  on  his  return  to  Florence,  married 
advantageously,  and  in  15 12  discharged  a  mission  to 
Spain,  where  he  graduated  in  diplomacy  under  the 
eye  of  the  most  crafty  and  faithless  prince  of  the  Age 
of  Perfidy,  Ferdinand  the  Catholic.  The  revolution 
which  restored  the  Medici  occurred  in  his  absence. 
He  accepted  the  situation,  but  instead  of  serving  the 
Government  at  home,  passed  into  the  employment  of 
the  Medicean  Pope,  Leo  X.,  to  whom  he  must  have 
been  highly  recommended,  for  he  immediately  received 
the  government  of  Modena,  Reggio,  and  Parma,  recently 
added  to  the  states  of  the  Church,  in  which  he  showed 
the  utmost  energy  and  sagacity  in  suppressing  male- 
factors and  preserving  order.  From  1524  to  1527  he 
was  President  of  the  Romagna,  and  until  1534,  when  he 
retired  from  the  Pope's  service.  Governor  of  Bologna, 
and  all  evidence  goes  to  show  that  the  Papal  power  was 


12 


i66 


ITALIAN   LITERATURE 


never  more  faithfully  served  than  by  the  man  who  held  it 
in  such  abhorrence.  He  cannot  be  acquitted  of  having 
favoured  the  overthrow  of  Florentine  lib.Tty  in  1530, 
and  is  accused  of  acts  of  cupidity  and  vengeance  which 
do  not  seem  in  harmony  with  his  general  character. 
He  returned  to  his  native  city  in  1534,  hoping  to  play 
an  important  part  under  the  restored  dynasty  ;  but  the 
youthful  Duke  Cosmo,  who  needed  no  tutor  in  the  arts 
of  intrigue  and  dissimulation,  gently  thrust  him  aside, 
and  the  disappointed  politician  solaced  his  latter  years 
with  the  composition  of  his  history.  Six  years  of  liter- 
ary leisure  gave  him  a  renown  which  his  twenty  years 
of  active  concern  with  the  world's  business  would  never 
have  procured  him.  He  died  in  1540,  leaving  his  history 
still  in  want  of  the  last  touches. 

It  is,  nevertheless,  the  leading  fault  of  this  very  great 
book  to  have  had  too  many  touches  already.  Guic- 
ciardini,  like  Gibbon,  thought  much  of  his  dignity,  and 
assumed  his  historical  as  poets  are  said  to  assume  their 
singing  robes.  He  dropped  the  easy  and  vigorous  style 
in  which  his  fragment  upon  Florentine  history  had 
been  composed  in  his  youth,  and  wrote  in  a  dignified 
and  ambitious  manner  for  which  nature  did  not  qualify 
him.  Hence  he  is  tedious,  and  the  impression  of 
tameness  is  enhanced  by  the  unsatisfactory  character  | 
of  the  incidents  narrated,  and  the  author's  general  de-  ! 
ficiency  in  enthusiasm.  With  all  these  defects  it  is  still 
one  of  the  most  valuable  histories  ever  written.  It 
might  be  entitled  the  History  of  the  Decline  and  F^all 
of  Italy,  from  the  French  invasion  in  1494.  For  us  the 
sadness  of  the  picture  is  relieved  by  our  knowledge  of 
the  splendour  of  literature  and  art  in  an  age  of  complete 
dissolution  of  the  body  politic  ;  but  these  redeeming  cir- 


CHARACTER  AS  AN   HISTORIAN  167 

cumstances  do  not  enter  into  Guicciardini's  view  :  he  can 
only  write  as  Polybius  wrote  of  the  downfall  of  Greece. 
He  has  much  in  common  with  this  historian  :  both  men 
of  affairs  ;  both  largely  concerned  with  the  events  they 
describe  ;  both  embittered  by  public  calamities  and  con- 
temptuous of  the  capacity  of  their  countrymen;  both 
patriotic  children  of  a  ruined  state,  while  compelled, 
and  not  wholly  averse,  to  adopt  intimate  association 
with  the  conqueror;  neither  of  them  the  master  of  a 
good  style,  but  compensating  this  defect  by  good  sense 
and  the  invaluable  political  lessons  they  derive  from  the 
transactions  they  record. 

Another  statesman-historian,  Ranke,  has  brought  heavy 
charges  against  Guicciardini,  both  of  plagiarism  and  of 
wilful  manipulation  of  facts,  but  he  seems  to  have  been 
successfully  answered  by  Signor  Villari   in   his   Life  of 
i  Machiavelli.     Villari,  who  has  had  access  to  the  archives 

^  of  Guicciardini's  family,  is  able  to  show  the  extent  to 

which  he  availed  himself  of  MS.  materials,  and  his  care 
in  working  them  up  into  his  history.  Many  of  his 
statements  which  have  since  been  shown  to  be  erro- 
neous, were  in  conformity  with  the  general  belief  of  his 

time. 

Guicciardini's  literary  glory  was  enhanced,  though  his 
moral  character  suffered  some  injury,  by  the  publica- 
tion of  his  inedited  writings  in  ten  volumes  in  1857  and 
following  years.  These  include,  with  other  important 
matter,  the  fragment  of  Florentine  history  to  which  re- 
ference has  been  made  ;  his  official  correspondence  as 
diplomatist  and  governor,  full  of  historical  information 
and  practical  sagacity;  the  considerations  on  Machiavelli, 
his  friend  and  fellow-expert  in  politics,  characteristic  of 
the  natures  of  the  two  men,  so  eminent  respectively  in 


i68 


ITALIAN   LITERATURE 


GUICCIARDINI  AS  PATRIOT 


169 


theory  and  in  practice  ;  the  Dialogue  on  the  Government 
of  Florence^  avowini^  this  ostensible  partisan  of  the 
Medici's  secret  preference  for  a  repubhc,  though  an  oh- 
garchical  one  ;  most  important  of  all,  the  Ricordi politici  e 
civilif  maxims  and  memoranda  of  a  statesman.  These 
are  purely  aphoristic,  without  system  or  unity  beyond 
that  which  they  necessarily  derive  from  the  constitution 
of  the  mind  upon  which  they  have  been  impressed 
by  experience  and  reflection. 

"  He  fully  understood,"  says  Villari,  ^'  that  by  this 
plan  his  counsels  and  political  maxims  became  nothing 
more  than  simple  observations,  palliatives  and  tricks  for 
the  wiser  or  less  wise  guidance  of  the  social  machine, 
apart  from  all  radical  refortTi  or  the  creation  of  any 
new  system  of  political  hcicnce  or  moral  philosophy, 
and  still  less  of  any  new  state  or  new  people.  But 
he  neither  hoped  nor  desired  to  entertain  hopes  of  so 
lofty  a  nature.  System  he  did  not  seek,  daring  hypo- 
theses were  not  to  his  taste  ;  he  merely  gathered  the 
fruit  of  his  own  and  others'  daily  experience."  In  a 
word,  Guicciardini  was  a  realist ;  Machiavelli,  for  all 
his  worldly  wisdom,  an  idealist.  As  the  Bishop  of 
London  has  remarked  :  "  It  is  the  weakness  of  Machia- 
velli's  political  method  that,  while  professing  to  deal  with 
politics  in  a  practical  spirit,  he  is  not  practical  enough." 
It  w^ould  seem  Guicciardini's  chief  fault  to  have  t.iken 
too  limited  a  view  of  human  affairs,  and  to  have  judged 
too  exclusively  from  what  was  happening  in  his  own 
corner.  The  imperfection  of  historical  materials,  how- 
ever, rendered  any  attempt  at  a  philosophy  of  history 
extremely  difficult,  and  Guicciardini's  time  was  too  much 
occupied  by  administrative  labours  for  profound  investi- 
gation.    Notwithstanding  his  opportunism  and  political 


^ 


pessimism,  he  had  an  ideal,  and  he  tells  us  plainly  what 

it  was  : 

"  /  desire  to  see  three  things  before  my  death — but  I  doubt 
I  may  live  long  enough  without  seeing  any  of  them — a  well- 
ordered  republican  mode  of  life  in  our  own  city,  the  deliver- 
ance  of  Italy  Jrom  all  barbarians  y  and  the  world  freed  from 
the  tyranny  of  these  execrable  priests  J' 

The  mutability  of  the  world  might  almost  seem  to  justify 
Guicciardini's  hand-to-mouth  method  of  getting  through 
it.  We  have  seen  Petrarch  two  centuries  earlier  calling 
for  the  Pope's  return  to  Rome  as  the  panacea  for  all  the 
ills  of  Italy.  Guicciardini  w^ould  have  sided  with  him  in 
that  age  ;  in  his  own  the  same  genius  of  liberty  which 
spoke  by  Petrarch's  mouth  to  demand  the  Pope's  re- 
storation speaks  by  his  to  demand  the  Pope's  expulsion. 
It  was  not  given  to  him  to  see  the  great  value  in  evil 
times  of  the  temporal  power—  in  good  times  monstrous 
—  as  an  asylum  for  what  little  of  independence  could 
still  subsist  in  Italy,  and  a  testimony,  however  feeble,  to 
a  moral  and  spiritual  unity  destined  to  develop  into  a 
national  unity.  But  against  the  Papal  sway  on  its  own 
merits,  apart  from  the  accidental  circumstances  of  the 
time,  Guicciardini  and  Machiavelli  prophesy  like  the  two 
witnesses  of  the  Apocalypse. 


i  J 


CHAPTER  XIII 

OTHER  PROSE-WRITERS  OF  THE  SIXTEENTH 

CENTURY 

Italy  now  possessed  a  perfect  standard  of  prose.  She 
had  already  had  one  in  the  fourteenth  century,  when  so 
rapid  had  been  the  development  of  the  power  of  expres- 
sion that  the  form  had  outrun  the  substance.  She  could 
say  anything  ;  but  except  by  the  mouth  of  the  novelist 
Boccaccio,  and  that  of  Petrarch,  who  preferred  to  write 
his  prose  m  Latin,  had  found  little  worthy  of  emphatic 
utterance.  It  may  be  partly  owing  to  this  poverty  of 
matter  in  the  vernacular  literature,  as  well  as  to  the 
passion  for  Latin,  that  style  decayed  so  greatly  during 
the  fifteenth  century.  Yet,  so  far  as  the  latter  of  these 
causes  operated,  the  evil  brought  its  own  remedy  :  it 
was  impossible  to  be  as  deeply  versed  as  Pontano  or 
Politian  in  the  elegances  of  Latin  without  becoming 
unpatient  of  barbarism  and  pedantry  in  Italian.  San- 
nazaro,  an  exquisite  Latin  writer,  was  perhaps  the  first 
considerable  man  who  insisted  on  an  even  standard  of 
distinction  in  both  languages.  Fortunately  for  Italy,  th  J 
Arcadia  was  a  very  popular  book;  fortunately,  too,  the 
Latin  constructions  with  which  it  is  replete  were  not 
so  easily  imitated  as  its  general  rehnement  of  phrase. 
By  the  time  of  Leo  X.  inelegance  had  almost  disap- 
peared from  Italian  bterature,  and  Italv  might  boast  her- 


170 


AUTHORS  AND  PATRONS 


171 


1 
I 

i 


*  I 


self  the  only  country  in  Europe  that  possessed  a  perfect 
literary  language  ;  wanting,  indeed,  the  golden  simplicity 
of  the  thirteenth  century,  but  still  the  prose  of  cultivated 
men,  and  adequate  for  every  form  of  literary  composi- 
tion.'   The   intellectual  distinction  thus  conferred  upon 
the  nation,  combined  with  her  still  more  pronounced 
superiority  in  the  arts,  seemed,  as  with  Greece  in  similar 
circumstances,  to  regain  for  her  a  dominion  more  illus- 
trious than  that  of  which  she  had  been  despoiled.     For 
a  hundred  years  her  authors  were  the  arbiters  of  taste 
and  the  models  of  Europe,  a  sovereignty  which  might 
have   been   prolonged  had  it  been   possible  for  her  to 
place   herself    on    the    right   and  victorious  side  in   the 
great  battle  for  civil  and  religious  freedom  that  resounded 
throughout  the  sixteenth  century. 

As  in  all  countries  at  their  first  awakening  to  an  era 
of  literary  culture,  this  culture  had  gone  deep  enough  to 
produce  a  multitude  of  authors,  but  not  deep  enough  to 
generate  a  literary  public  capable  of  supporting  them. 
The   appetite   for   fame   and   the  delight  in  authorship 
filled  the  ranks  of  literature  with  aspiring  recruits,  but 
the  commissariat,  without  which  no  army  can  keep  the 
field,  had  to  be  supplied  by  patronage,  either  from  indi- 
viduals or  the  state.     Hence,  except  when  some  wealthy 
noble    like  Angelo   di   Costanzo   was   smitten   with   the 
passion  for  literary  fame,  we  usually  fnid  the  writers  of 
the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries,  even  when  most 
illustrious,  in  a  condition  of  dependence.     When  with 
this  is  considered  the  utter  absence  of  civil  freedom  (for 
Venice,  the  one  free  city,  hospitable  to  authors,  allowed 
little  liberty  to  printers),  it  is  remarkable  that  the  servility 
of   the   writers   should  have  extended  so   little  beyond 
their  dedications.     Especially  is  this  the  case  with  his- 


1/2 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE 


tory,  which,  notwithstanding  the  influences  at  work  to 
disfigure  and  corrupt  it,  remained  on  the  whole  surpris- 
ingly impartial.  This  must  be  ascribed  in  great  part  to 
the  influence  of  classic  models  ;  partly,  also,  to  the  real 
mental  superiority  of  most  of  those  who  in  the  sixteenth 
century  essayed  this  form  of  composition. 

No  form  is  more  attractive  than  the  historical  to 
men  ambitious  to  shine  in  letters,  and  conscious  of 
high  talent  without  creative  genius.  "  No  merita  il  nome 
di  crcatorCy  se  non  Iddio  ed  il  Poeta ; "  but  delineation 
of  character  and  representation  of  events  are  as  it 
were  an  inferior  kind  of  creation  out  of  pre-existing 
material,  like  that  ascribed  by  ancient  theology  to  the 
Demiurgus.  The  literary  genius  of  Italy  addressed  itself 
eagerly  to  the  task.  Ere  long  almost  every  considerable 
state  had  its  vernacular  historian.  Some  of  the  most 
important  writers,  nevertheless,  continued  to  compose 
in  Latin.  Among  these  the  most  eminent  was  that  very 
secular  prelate  and  not  very  trustworthy  historian  Paolo 
GlOViO,  Bishop  of  Nocera  (1483-1552),  one  of  the  men 
whose  chief  title  to  fame  in  our  dav  is  to  have  been 
famous  in  their  own,  but  w^ho  was  certainly  reckoned 
as  the  chief  historian  of  his  time,  and  whose  biographies 
of  eminent  men  of  letters  and  illustrious  captains  are 
still  found  valuable.  Part  of  his  general  history  of  his 
own  times  perished  in  the  sack  of  Rome  (1527),  and, 
with  a  sensitiveness  not  dishonourable  to  him,  he  shrank 
from  recording  the  transactions  of  a  time  when  the  vials 
of  wrath  seemed  so  visibly  poured  out  upon  the  Papacy. 
Except  for  the  gaps  indicated,  his  history  extends  from 
1494  ^^  ^547-  Literature  sustained  a  heavy  loss  in  the 
disappearance  of  the  work  of  Andrea  Navagero,  another 
Latin  historian  (1483-1529),  who  had  been  entrusted  by 


FLORENTINE  HISTORIANS 


173 


the  Venetian  Government  with  the  history  of  their  Re- 
public. The  loss  of  another  historian — Girolamo  Borgia, 
who  wrote  the  history  of  Italy  in  the  days  of  Alexander 
VI.  and  Julius  Il.—is  greatly  to  be  deplored,  not  because 
he  was  distinguished  as  a  writer,  but  because  he  was  a 

Borgia. 

The  historian  of  Florence  had  given  the  first  example 
of  really  classic  Italian  history,  and  Florence,  though 
backward  in  comparison  with  Venice  in  the  diffusion  of 
literature  by  the  art  of  printing,  still  took  the  lead  among 
Italian  cities  in  literary  as  well  as  artistic  cultivation. 
A  group  of  Florentine  annalists  sprung  up,  whose  pens 
were  chiefly  exerted  for  the  honour  of  their  birthplace. 
Their  candour  generally  prevented  the  publication  of 
their  works  in  their  lifetime.  Such  is  the  case  with 
JACOPO  Nardi,  who  wrote  the  history  of  Florence  from 
the  expulsion  of  the  Medici  in  1494  to  their  final  restora- 
tion in  1530,  "with  sincerity  of  intention  and  painstaking 
accuracy  "  (Symonds),  but  also  with  the  acrimony  to  be 
expected  from  a  banished  patriot  who  fought  for  liberty 
to  the  last,  and  for  the  remainder  of  his  life  ate  the  bread 
of  exile  at  Venice.  The  style  is  accused  of  aridity  ;  but 
his  translation  of  Livy  is  regarded  as  one  of  the  best  in 
the  Italian  language.  His  own  history  was  not  published 
until  1582,  nor  that  of  his  continuator  Segni  until  1713, 
although  this  elegant  historian,  whose  work  occupies 
the  period  from  1527  to  1555,  w^as  a  partisan  of  the 
Medici.  A  portion  of  the  same  epoch,  from  1527  to 
1538,  is  described  much  more  diffusely  by  Benedetto 
Vakchi,  one  of  the  most  prolific  men  of  letters  of  his 
time.  Varchi,  though  a  devotee  of  the  liberty  of  whose 
restoration  he  despaired,  wrote  by  the  special  commis- 
sion of  the  Grand  Duke  Cosmo,  which  neither  affected 


il 

III 


174 


ITALIAN   LITERATURE 


his  impartiality  nor  protected  him  from  being  nearly 
murdered  by  some  private  persons  who  had  been 
offended  by  his  honesty,  nor  prevented  his  history 
from  remaining  in  MS.  until  the  eighteenth  century. 
In  1570  ScH'iOXE  AmmiIaIATO,  a  Neapolitan,  received  a 
commission  from  the  Grand  Duke  to  write  a  general 
history  of  Florence,  which  he  brought  down  to  1574. 
His  free  access  to  archives  enabled  him  to  be  more 
accurate  than  any  predecessor.  He  also  compiled  some 
valuable  genealogical  works.  The  history  of  Ferrara 
w^as  written  by  Pigna,  and  that  of  Genoa  by  Fogli- 
etta  and  Bonfadio,  all  of  whom  may  be  considered 
standard  historians.  The  same  can  hardly  be  said  of 
any  other  of  the  numerous  local  writers  whom  Italy  pro- 
duced in  this  age,  except  Porzio,  the  historian  of  the 
conspiracy  of  the  Neapolitan  barons  against  King  P^er- 
dinand  ;  Graziani,  who  recounted  the  Venetian  wars  in 
Cyprus  ;  and  three  others  who  deserve  notice  not  merely 
as  historians  but  as  typical  ligures. 

Never  since  Petrarch's  day  had  the  sceptre  of  Italian 
literature  rested  so  unequivocally  in  one  hand  as  in 
PlETRO  Bembo's  during  the  second  quarter  of  the  six- 
teenth century.  In  one  respect  Bembo's  pre-eminence 
is  even  more  remarkable  than  his  predecessor's,  for 
Petrarch  towered  immeasurably  above  any  possible  com- 
petitor except  Boccaccio,  while  Bembo  w^as  so  far  from 
being  the  first  man  of  his  day  that  he  was  not  even  a 
man  of  genius.  His  wonderful  gift  for  felicitous  imita- 
tion, whether  in  prose  or  verse,  was  unaccompanied  by 
any  power  of  original  thought.  But  he  possessed  beyond 
any  contemporary  the  formal  perfection  of  style,  whether 
in  Latin  or  Italian,  demanded  by  the  age.  His  History 
of  Venice,  which  alone  concerns  us  here,  was  originally 


BEMBO 


175 


published  in  the  former  language,  but  Bembo  vindicated 
his  claim  to  a  place  among  Italian  historians  by  himself 
translating  it  into  Italian.  He  had  succeeded  Andrea 
Navagero  as  Venetian  historiographer  in  1529. 

Born  at  Venice  in  1470,  and  son  of  the  magistrate  who 
so  honourably  distinguished  himself  by  raising  a  monu- 
ment to  Dante  at  Ravenna,  Bembo  had  all  his  life  enjoyed 
the  favour  of  the  great.     He  had  been  the  Platonic  ad- 
mirer of  Lucrezia  Borgia,  who  had  honoured  him  with 
the  shining  tress  and  the  dull  letters  religiously  preserved 
in  the  Brera  Library  at  Milan.     Leo  X.  had  made  him 
his  secretary  before  issuing  from  his  own  conclave,  and, 
with  munificence  for  once  well  applied,  had  provided  him 
with  means  to  occupy  a  delicious  retreat  at  Padua,  where 
he  was  residing  when  he  received  the  Venetian  commis- 
sion.    At  a  later  period  Paul  111.,  who  loved  to  surround 
himself  with  illustrious  men,  raised  him   to   the   Cardi- 
nalate  and  drew  him  to  Rome,  where  he  died  in  1547, 
more  admired  and  lamented  than  any  man  of  letters  of 
his  time.     His  history,  which  extends  from  1487  to  1513, 
and  which  he  composed  with  his  eye  upon  Qi^'sar,  is  the 
image  of  the  writer,  perfect  in  the  harmony  of  its  periods, 
and  carrying  the  reader  rapidly  along  its  smooth  surface, 
but  surface   alone,  describing  every  occurrence   as  the 
ordinary  man  saw  it  and  the  statesman  did  not,  with  no 
attempt  to  search  out  the  secret  springs  of  action,   no 
reference  to  documents  public  or  private,  and,  which  is 
more    surprising,   no    effort    to   delineate    a    remarkable 
character.       That    this    would    not    have    exceeded    his 
powers  is  shown  by  his  beautiful  portrait  of  the  Duchess 
of  Urbino,  in  his  Latin  life  of  her  husband. 

Bembo's  successor,  Pietro    Paruta  (1540-98),  who 
continued   his   history   to    1551,   typities   the    statesman 


1/6 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE 


VASARI  AND  CELLINI 


177 


historian,  versed  in  diplomacy  and  public  business,  and 
so  highly  endowed  with  the  qualifications  demanded  by 
such  employments  as  to  have  become  Procurator  of  the 
Republic,  and  to  have  been  prevented  only  by  his  death 
from  becoming  Doge.     He  was  consequently  well  fitted 
to   write   the    annals   of    a    state    like   Venice,   and   his 
work  stands  high  among   Italian   histories.      The   third 
exceptional  historian  of  the  age,  typical  of  the  accom- 
plished  literary   amateur,    is   Angelo   DI   Costanzo,   a 
Neapolitan  noble  whom  we  shall  meet  again  among  the 
poets.     He  wrote  the  history  of  Naples  from  1250  to 
i486,  and  is  interesting  as  the  pupil  of  Sannazaro,  the 
friend  of  Vittoria  Colonna,  a  patrician   whose  love  of 
letters  led  him  to    cultivate   authorship,   and    a   patriot 
whose  love  of   country   gave    umbrage   to   the   jealous 
Spanish  viceroy,  and  subjected  him  to  perpetual  confine- 
ment to  his  estates.     His  history  does  not  disappoint  the 
favourable  prepossessions  thus  aroused,  being  composed 
with  great  elegance  and  dignity,  and  a  manifest  love  of 
truth  ;  insomuch  that  the  author  of  the  modern  standard 
history  of  Naples,  Giannone,  while  supplying  Costanzo's 
defects  by  close  attention  to  jurisprudence,  public  eco- 
nomy, and  other  subjects  neglected  by  his  predecessor, 
has  transfused  most  of  the  latter's  narrative  into  his  own. 
Biography,  the  most  attractive  form  of   prose  com- 
position, was  also  well  represented  in  this  age,  but  in- 
spired only  two  standard  works,  extremely  unlike  in  style 
and  spirit,  but  both  possessions  for  all  time,  and  both 
relating  to  the  fine  arts.     GiOKGio  Vasari  (1512-74), 
biographer  -  general   of   painters,   sculptors,   and   archi- 
tects, may   be    called   the    Herodotus   of   art;    a   prac- 
titioner   himself,    and    acquainted    with    many    of    the 
persons  whom  he  describes;  lively  and  garrulous,  appa- 


t 
t 


rently  most  artless,  he  possesses  either  the  science  or 
the  knack  of  felicitous  composition  in  an  extraordinary 
degree.  Living  when  picturesque  stories  about  artists 
were  accepted  without  question,  he  is  entirely  unem- 
barrassed in  relating  such  as  commend  themselves  to 
him,  to  the  joy  of  the  readers  and  the  scandal  of  the 
critics  of  the  future.  It  is  probable  that  scepticism  of 
the  truth  of  his  anecdotes  and  the  authority  due  to  his 
attributions  of  pictures  has  gone  much  too  far ;  but 
however  this  may  be,  criticism  will  never  be  able  to 
turn  his  living  book  into  a  dead  one,  or  to  invalidate  our 
debt  to  him  for  the  mass  of  unquestionably  authentic 
particulars  which  he  has  presei-ved.  His  good  tasti  in 
art  as  well  as  in  literature  is  evinced  by  his  admiration 
for  the  first-fruits  of  the  early  Tuscan  school,  neglected 
in  his  day,  and  his  character  appears  throughout  his 
work  in  the  most  amiable  light.  His  chief  defect,  a  serious 
one,  is  the  imperfection  of  his  information  respecting  the 
important  schools  of  Lombardy  and  Venice. 

There  is  little  amiability  in  a  still  more  distinguished 
writer,  whose  pen  has  gained  him  the  immortality  which 
he  expected  from  the  chisel  and  the  graver.  Benvenuto 
Cellini  (1501-71)  was  undoubtedly  a  very  eminent  artist; 
yet  the  autobiography  which  has  preserved  his  name, 
while  those  of  Pompco  Tarcone  and  Alessandro  Cesati 
are  forgotten,  is  a  greater  work  of  art  than  any  he 
accomplished  in  his  own  vocation.  It  may  be  compared 
to  the  realistic  sculpture  of  Donatello,  surpassing  in 
vigour  and  animation  the  ideal  models  of  which  it  falls 
short  in  elegance  and  grace.  It  is  the  counterpart  of 
a  man,  and  a  very  manly  man,  all  muscle  and  sinew  and 
rude  force,  a  boaster,  a  bully,  a  libertine,  a  duellist, 
almost  an  assassin,  one  whom  a  slight  change  of  circum* 


178 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE 


stances  would  easily  have  made  a  brigand  or  a  bravo, 
but  always  the  artist.     No  book,  it  is  probable,  gives  a 
better    idea   of    the   general   atmosphere   of  the    Italy  of 
the  sixteenth  century  ;   assuredly  no  other  delineation  is 
nearly  so  vivid.     With  truly   Pepysian  unconsciousness 
the  writer  depicts  in  himself  the  man  of  turbulent  and 
impracticable    character    moving    among    princes    and 
nobles,  outraging  their  forbearance  by  every  action  of 
his    life,    and    revenging    himself    for    their    exhausted 
patience  bv  malicious  truth  or  reckless  calumny.    The 
general  fidelity  of  the  picture,  however,  does  not  depend 
upon  the  accuracy  of  particular  statements,  and  Cellini's 
untruths    where    his    own    vanity    is   concerned   do   not 
impair  his  claim   to   confidence   as   a   delineator  of   his 
age.     Of  the  literary  merit  of  his  performance  it  is  need- 
less to  speak  ;   if  not  at  the  very  head   of  entertaining 
autobiograpliies,  it  is  at  least  second  to  none.     The  Eng- 
lish reader  will  be    continually    reminded    of    Haydon ; 
althoui^h,  however,  Haydon's  confidence  in  himself  was 
no  less  robust  than  Cellini's,  he  had  far  less  reason  for 
it,  nor,  with  all  his  vividness,  is  he  the  Italian's  equal  in 

graphic  power. 

One  other  prose-writer  of  the  period,  and  perhaps  only 
one,  may  be  considered  as  much  an  author  for  all  time 
as  Vasari  and  Cellini.  This  is  Baldassake  Castiglioxe, 
whose  CorUgiano  dcplcisihc  ideal  life  of  the  accomplished 
Italian  courtier— a  character  ( )f  more  importance  in  that 
day  than  he  can  be  in  ours.  In  Castiglione's  time  not 
only  were  the  court  and  good  society  almost  convertible 
expressions,  but  the  relation  of  the  courtier  to  the  court 
was  far  more  intimate  than  it  can  be  now.  It  actually 
was  his  sphere,  which  he  seldom  forsook  except  when 
absent  on  military  enterprises  or  public  business  ;  he  was 


CASTIGLIONE 


179 


in  habits  of  daily  intercourse  with  his  sovereign,  and 
professed  courtesy  and  civility  as  others  professed  arts 
or  trades.  A  competent  writer  on  the  court  and  its 
accomplishments,  therefore,  was  necessarily  an  instructor 
in  manners  and  refinement,  and  as  such  might  exercise 
an  important  influence  on  his  age.  While  the  equally 
accomplished  Casa,  in  his  GalateOy  instructed  the  average 
gentleman  in  good  manners,  the  courtier's  training  fell 
to  the  lot  of  Castiglione,  than  whom  no  man  could  be 
better  qualified  either  by  actual  disposition  or  the  cir- 
cumstances of  his  life.  A  Mantuan  by  birth,  he  had 
served  the  Duke  of  Urbino,  had  exemplified  Italian  re- 
finement at  the  English  court  on  a  mission  to  receive 
the  Garter  for  his  sovereign,  and  when  he  wrote  (15 18), 
was  envoy  at  the  court  of  Leo  X.,  and  the  intimate  friend 
of  the  most  cultivated  men  of  his  age. 

The  machinery  of  his  book  is  a  report,  imaginary  in 
form,  but  faithful  in  spirit,  of  dialogues  held  at  the  court 
of  Urbino  among  the  distinguished  persons  who  fre- 
quented it  at  various  times.  They  are  by  no  means 
frivolous  ;  Castiglione's  standard,  not  merely  of  deport- 
ment and  manly  exercise,  but  of  intellectual  accomplish- 
ment, is  very  high.  The  conversations  deal  with  such 
themes  as  the  preferable  form  of  government  and  the 
condition  of  women,  and  are  handled  with  signal  ele- 
gance, acumen,  and  graceful  but  not  cumbrous  erudition. 
They  are  interspersed  with  pleasant  stories  admirably 
told,  and  would  give  a  fascinating  idea  of  Italian  court 
life,  were  it  not  so  evident  that  its  darker  features  have 
been  kept  out  of  view,  and  that  the  general  relation  of 
Castiglione's  picture  to  reality  is  that  of  Sannazaro's 
Arcadia  to  the  actual  life  of  shepherds.  Yet  the  picture 
has  many  elements  of  truth,  and  it  speaks  well  for  the 


I  So 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE 


age  that  it  could  produce  even  such  an  ideal.  "  Carried 
to  the  north  of  Europe,"  says  Mr.  Courthope,  **  and 
grafted  on  the  still  chivalrous  manners  of  the  English 
aristocracy,  the  ideal  of  Castiglione  contributed  to  form 
the  character  of  Sir  Philip  Sidney.'*  The  delicacy  of 
Castiglione's  sentiments  is  shown  by  his  bitter  mortifica- 
tion at  the  unjust  reproaches  of  Clement  VII.,  into  whose 
service  he  afterw^ards  entered,  and  who  accused  him  of 
failure  as  a  diplomatist.  These  are  said  to  have  broken 
his  heart.  He  died  in  1529.  Raphael  had  painted  his 
portrait,  his  tomb  was  designed  by  Giulio  Romano,  and 
his  epitaph  was  written  by  Bembo. 

"Love  rules  the  court,  the  camp,  the  grove."  The 
Asolaiii  of  Bembo,  therefore,  a  disquisition  on  Love 
from  different  points  of  view,  composed  in  imitation  of 
Cicero's  Tusculan  Questions,  should  take  precedence  of 
Castiglione's  Cortegiano,  but  it  can  hardly  be  said  that  it 
does.  The  Cortegiano  is  a  piece  of  real  life,  indicating,  if 
not  precisely  what  the  highest  Italian  society  was,  at  all 
events  what  it  felt  it  ought  to  be.  Bembo's  dialogues,  or 
rather  monologues,  might  have  been  composed  in  any 
age  of  refinement ;  they  are  purely  academical  in  form, 
and  the  perpetual  justice  of  the  sentiments  is  purchased 
by  perpetual  commonplace.  Seldom,  however,  have 
commonplaces  been  set  off  with  such  harmony  and 
polish  of  style,  or  with  more  ingenious  eloquence,  espe- 
cially at  the  conclusion,  where  the  Hermit  reconciles 
Love's  advocates  and  his  accusers  by  descanting  on  the 
charms  of  ideal  beauty.  If  it  be  true  that  to  have  read 
it  was  the  indispensable  passport  to  good  society,  the 
circumstance  is  creditable  to  the  age's  literary  taste,  and 
still  more  so  to  its  standard  of  ideal  excellence.  Bembo's 
prose  is  more  satisfactory  than  his  poetry,  perhaps  be* 


MORALISTS 


181 


cause  it  raises  less  expectation  ;  in  verse  the  wonder  is 
that  he  attains  no  further,  and  in  prose  that  he  attains 
so  far.  Gli  Asolaniy  first  published  in  1505,  was  written 
at  the  age  of  twenty-eight,  and  was  dedicated  to  Lucrezia 
Borgia.  On  the  strength  of  it  Bembo  is  made  the  chief 
interlocutor  in  Castiglione's  Cortegiano  when  the  question 
of  love  is  touched  upon.^ 

The  number  of  writers  at  this  period  w^ho,  if  not 
always  moral,  may  be  described  as  moralists,  is  very 
considerable.  Alessandro  Piccolomlxi,  afterwards 
Archbishop  of  Patras,  wrote  a  complete  institution  of 
the  citizen  which  is  not  devoid  of  merit  ;  but  he  is  better 
remembered  by  a  sin  of  his  youth,  the  Dialogo  della 
hella  creanza  delle  donne^  in  which  an  Italian  Martha 
successfully  exhorts  an  Italian  Margaret  to  add  a  lover 
to  a  husband.  The  literary  merits  of  this  otherwise 
reprehensible  performance  are  considerable  ;  it  is  also 
an  authority  on  cosmetics.  Sperone  Speroni,  eminent 
for  the  dignity  of  his  life  and  the  elegance  of  his  style, 
has  the  further  honour  of  having  first  employed  the 
dialogue  in  the  discussion  of  purely  ethical  questions. 
Lodovico  Dolce  and  A.  F.  Doni,  industrious  litterateurs, 
obtained  a  reputation  in  their  own  day  which  posterity 
has  not  ratified.  The  former,  says  Tiraboschi,  wrote 
much  in  every  style  and  well  in  none  ;  the  latter  is 
tersely  characterised  by  Niceron  as  "grand  diseur  de 
riens."  Far  superior  is  Giovanni  Battista  Gelli,  the 
learned  tailor  of  Florence,  who  had  the  great  advan- 
tage over  the  other  moralists  of  being  able  to  clothe 
his  wit  and  wisdom  in  an  objective  form.  In  his  Circe, 
Ulysses  is  represented  as  unsuccessfully  endeavouring 
to  persuade  his  metamorphosed  companions  to  re- 
assume  human  shape.  They  know  better,  and  their 
13 


l82 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE 


arqiimentatlon  might  well  have  suggested  th?  machinery 
of  Dryden's  Hind  and  Panther ;  even  as  that  of  Gelli's 
Capricci^  where  Giii^to  disputes  with  his  own  soul,  was 
very  probably  copied  in  Smollett's  Adventures  of  an 
Atom, 

One  of  the  most  characteristic  WTiters  of  the  time  is 
Agxolo  Firexzuola  (1497-1547),  an  authority  "on  the 
form  and  colour  of  the  ear,  and  the  proper  way  of  wear- 
ing ornamental  flowers,"  whose  elegant  and  frequently 
licentious  stories,  idiomatically  Tuscan  in  style,  fresh  in 
humour,  and  brilliant  in  description,  are  interwoven  with 
his  Dialoghi  d  A  more,  and  who  also  gained  fame  by  his 
comedies,  and  as  the  translator,  or  rather  adapter,  of 
Apuleius.  As  the  combination  of  the  photographic  por- 
traits of  several  members  of  any  class  of  society  gives  the 
mean  average  of  its  physiognomy,  so  Firenzuola  repre- 
sents the  average  constitution  of  such  men  of  letters  of 
his  day  as  wrote  with  a  real  vocation  for  literature.  It  is 
doubtful  whether  any  such  vocation  can  be  credited  to 
another  s:itiri>t  who  greatly  surpassed  him  in  celebrity, 
the  notorious  PlETRO  Aketixo  (1492-1556).  Aretino  w^as 
merely  a  literary  blackmailer,  whose  profligate  and  venal 
pen  was  employed  to  extort  or  cajole  money  from  the 
great  men  of  the  age.  His  indubitable  success  is  difficult 
to  understand,  except  as  the  irrepressible  and  irreversible 
decree  of  fashion.  Apart  from  his  comedies  and  his 
letters,  an  amazing  record  of  the  abasement  of  rank 
before  impudence,  only  one  of  his  works  has  any  literary 
merit,  and  the  genuineness  of  this  is  questionable.  His 
other  immoralities  are  as  insipid  as  his  moralities,  and  his 
personalities  are  of  the  kind  best  answered  by  a  cudgel. 
Notwithstanding,  he  became  a  power  in  public  life  as  well 
as  in  literature,  rivalled  the  opulence  and  the  pomp  of  his 


CHARACTERISTICS  OF  THE  AGE 


183 


friend  Titian,  and,  like  him,  trained  up  disciples  of  his 
craft.  The  charm  may  have  lain  in  some  measure  in 
the  boldness  of  the  man,  who  alone  in  his  age  made 
a  show  of  free  speech,  although  the  real  motor  of  his 
pen  was  cupidity,  who  lived  libelling,  and  died  laugh- 
ing. Worthless  as  he  was,  he  might  have  anticipated 
Pope's  boast  that  men  not  afraid  of  God  were  afraid 
of  him. 

Aretino  is  only  one  among  a  host  of  letter-writers,  who 
included  the  most  accomplished  men  of  the  age.  Bembo 
appears  as  its  typical  representative,  here  as  elsewhere, 
although  the  unfortunate  historian  Bonfadio  is  held  to 
have  written  best.  All  wrote  with  an  eye  to  the  publica- 
tion of  their  epistles,  and  asked  themselves  what  Cicero 
w^ould  have  said  in  their  place.  None  had  the  delightful 
candour  and  exuberance  of  Petrarch  ;  they  are  in  conse- 
quence much  less  national,  interesting,  and  human ;  and 
their  letters,  stripped  of  the  complimentary  phrases  which 
eke  them  out,  are  in  general  brief.  Yet  it  would  be  hard 
to  refuse  any  among  them  the  praise  due  to  two  excellent 
qualities,  good  style  and  good  sense.  Such  were  the 
general  characteristics  of  the  age,  a  period,  but  for 
Ariosto,  almost  devoid  of  creative  power  in  letters,  yet 
fully  worthy  to  be  ranked  with  the  other  great  eras  of 
artificial  literature,  the  eras  of  Augustus,  and  Anne,  and 
Louis  XIV.  Its  truest  praise  is  perhaps  afforded  by  a 
comparison  of  it  with  the  other  contemporary  litera- 
tures of  Europe,  then,  the  French  excepted,  which  is 
immensely  indebted  to  the  Italian,  almost  equally  desti- 
tute of  genius  and  of  art,  although  the  magnificent 
rhythm  of  English  prose  even  then  show^ed  w^hat  an 
instrument  had  been  provided  for  performers  yet  to 
come.     But  temporal  and  spiritual  tyranny  were  fast 


1 84 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE 


destroying  the  elementary  requisites  of  great  litera- 
ture  in  Italy.  The  hare  was  lamed,  and  the  tortoises 
were  overtaking  her.  A  little  while  yet,  and  it  would  be 
needful  to  look  beyond  Alp  and  sea  for  the  true  Italy, 
and  find  her  in  the  bosoms  of  Shakespeare,  Spenser,  and 
Sidney. 


CHAPTER  XIV 


THE    PETRARCHISTS 

We  have  seen  that  the  definite  result  of  the  literary  fer- 
ment which  accompanied  the  revival  of  vernacular  Italian 
literature  after  the  long  torpor  of  the  fifteenth  century 
was  the  recognition  of  literary  form,  rather  than  intel- 
lectual substance,  as  the  principal  object  of  cultivation, 
a  conclusion  completely  in  harmony  with  the  national 
genius  as  well  as  the  national  traditions.  Had  this 
been  otherwise,  revolt  would  soon  have  made  itself 
evident.  On  the  contrary,  however,  we  meet  with 
scarcely  any  manifestation  of  the  existence  of  a  romantic 
spirit  in  Italian  literature  until  Manzoni  begins  to  be 
inspired  by  Scott  and  Byron,  and  Foscolo  by  Rous- 
seau. The  consequence  is  a  great  lack  of  richness  and 
variety  in  comparison  with  a  literature  like  the  English, 
where  all  descriptions  of  tendencies  have  been  allowed 
ample  scope,  and  now  one,  now  another,  has  successively 
seemed  to  be  predominant ;  but  none,  except  now  and 
then  for  a  time,  has  attained  an  absolute  mastery. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  devotion  of  the  Italian  writers  to 
elegance  and  symmetry  of  composition  has  rendered  their 
literature  a  model  for  cultured  writers  in  all  languages,  has 
deeply  influenced  contemporary  literatures  in  their  rudi- 
mentary stages,  and  has  preserved  many  a  writer  from 
oblivion   whose   original    power   was   not   conspicuous, 


I 


1 


i86 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE 


whose  themes  have  long  since  become  antiquated,  but 
who  still  challenges  the  attention  of  posterity  by  charm 
of  style.     *^Cela  qui  n'est  pas  ecrit  ne  dure  pas  "  is  a  rule 
without  exception,  and  the  converse  is  often,  though  not 
always,  true  also.     One  highly  important  class  of  these 
writers  is  that  large  section  of  the  poets  who  modelled 
themselves  avowedly  on  the  greatest  master  of  style  their 
literature  possessed  or  possesses,  the  man  whose  thoughts, 
often  most  precious  in  themselves,  are  displayed  to  incom- 
parable advantage  by  incomparable  felicity  of  expression. 
Very  few   Italian   lyrical  poets  of  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury ventured  to  stray  far  from  the  traces  of  Petrarch, 
who  became  to  them  what  Virgil  and  Homer  and  Ovid 
had  necessarily  become  to  writers  in  Latin  verse.     Had 
Petrarch  excelled  in  epic  as  he  excelled  in  lyric,  Ariosto 
and  Tasso  too  would  have  been  his  humble  followers,  and 
the  whole  of  the  poetical  literature  of  the  age  would 
have  been  imitative,  and  consequently  second-rate.    Yet, 
ahhough  the  mass  of  this  derivative  literature  is  intoler- 
ably  empty   and    insipid,    much   is   distinguished  by   a 
perfection    of   expression    which    makes    it    not   merely 
delightful  reading  but  a  valuable  study.     The  poets  fre- 
quently seem  to  approach  Petrarch  very  nearly,  but  none 
reproduce  him.     Those  succeed  best  whose  imitation  is 
the  least  avowed,  and  who  arc  most  remote  from  their 
model  in  native  temperament,  such  as  Tansillo ;  on  the 
other  hand,  Bembo,  Molza,  and  their  like,  who  in  mere 
form  have  most  nearly  approached   Petrarch  by  most 
completely  suppressing  their  own  individuality,  present 
much    less    to    interest    modern   readers,  although  their 
contemporaries,  estimating  them  from  another  point  of 
view,  extolled  them  to  the  skies. 

Bembo  and  Molza,  nevertheless,  only  followed  in  the 


^   * 


I 

i 


SANNAZARO'S   POETRY 


l8; 


track  of  the  gifted  man  w^hom  we  have  already  seen  so 
influential  in  the  development  of  Italian  prose — Jacopo 
Sannazaro.  Sannazaro's  attention  was,  indeed,  princi- 
pally given  to  Latin  poetry.  But  the  qualifications  of 
an  eminent  Latinist  and  of  a  pattern  Petrarchist  were 
much  the  same.  Both  abdicated  all  claim  to  originality 
by  setting  before  themselves  a  model  which  it  was  taken 
for  granted — and  with  justice — that  they  w^ould  be  for 
ever  unable  to  rival.  Sannazaro  was,  notwithstanding^ 
something  more  than  a  master  of  felicitous  expression. 
His  Virgilian  De  Partu  Virginis,  in  which  he  vied  w^ith 
the  chief  contemporary  writers  of  Latin  hexameters,  Vida 
and  PYacastoro,  is  less  attractive  than  his  elegies,  into 
which  he  has  introduced  more  of  personal  feeling,  or  his 
Piscatorian  Eclogues,  in  w^hich  he  has  successfully  re- 
vived the  form,  if  not  the  spirit,  of  ancient  composition, 
and  from  which  Milton  did  not  disdain  to  borrow  orna- 
ments for  Lycidds.  As  a  follow^er  of  Petrarch,  Sannazaro 
stands  on  a  diflerent  footing  from  Bembo  and  Molza. 
Their  excellence  in  their  own  way  is  indisputable,  but 
monotonous  :  they  neither  rise  nor  sink  ;  every  poem 
of  theirs  is  just  as  good  as  every  other  poem.  Sanna- 
zaro, a  man  of  noble  character  and  strong  feeling,  im- 
ports a  personal  note  into  his  poetry,  and  succeeds  in 
proportion  to  the  clearness  with  which  he  can  render 
this  audible.  His  praise  of  Petrarch's  Laura,  for  in- 
stance, is  something  more  than  conventionality,  and 
these  lines,  Mors  et  Vita,  translated  by  Glassford,  express 
the  sum  of  much  serious  meditation  : 

"  Alas  /  a-hcn  I  behold  this  empty  show 

Of  tifry  and  think  how  soon  it  sJiall  have  fled; 
When  I  consider  how  the  honoured  head 

Is  daily  struck  by  death's  mysterious  blow^ 


1 88  ITALIAN  LITERATURE 

My  heart  is  wasted  like  the  melting  snow, 
And  hope,  that  comforter,  is  nearly  dead; 
Seeing  these  -d'ings  have  been  so  long  outspread. 

And  yet  so  sluggish  is  my  flight  and  low. 

But  if  I  therefore  should  complain  and  weep — 
If  chide  with  love,  or  fortune,  or  the  fair^ 
No  cause  I  have ;  myself  must  bear  it  all. 

Who,  like  a  man  hnid  trifles  lulled  to  sleep. 
With  death  beside  me,  feed  on  empty  air. 
Nor  think  how  soon  this  mouldering  garb  must  f all. ^* 

Among  Sannazaro's  contemporaries,  a  little  too  early 
to  have  imbibed  the  full  spirit  of  the  Petrarchan  revival, 
may  be  especially  named  Antonio  Tebaldeo  (1463-1537), 
an  admired  poet  who  survived  his  reputation  ;  Serafino 
deir  Aquila,  imitated  by  Wyat,  whose  Neapolitan  vehe- 
mence betrayed  his  lively  talent  into  bombast;  Antonio 
Cammelli,  the  poLtical  laureate  of  the  Ferrarese  court ; 
Antonello  Petrucci,  who  wrote  as  Damocles  banqueted, 
with  the  headsman's  axe  suspended  over  him  ;  Notturno 
Neapolitano;  and  Filosseno,  chiefly  remarkable  for 
the  undisguised  gallantry  of   his  sonnets  addressed  to 

Lucrezia  Borgia. 

Bembo  was  a  model  man  of  letters,  to  whom  in  this 
capacity  the  Italian  language  and  Italian  culture  are  in- 
linitely  beholden.  As  a  poet  he  is  perhaps  best  charac- 
terised by  the  forty  drawers  through  which  he  is  said  to 
have  successively  passed  his  sonnets,  making  some  altera- 
tion for  the  better  in  every  one  of  them.  If  there  had 
been  any  originality  in  any  of  them,  this  would  hardly 
have  survived  the  twentieth  drawer,  but  there  never  had 
been,  and  since  the  polish  was  always  meant  to  be  the 
merit,  there  hardly  could  be  too  much  polishing.  Bembo's 
poetry  at  all  events  serves  to  refute  the  heresy  which 
identifies  genius  with  industry  ;   and  if  we   admit  with 


BEMBO  AND  MOLZA 


189 


Roscoe  that  "any  person  of  good  taste  and  extensive 
reading  might,  by  a  due  portion  of  labour,  produce  works 
of  equal  merit,"  we  must  nevertheless  allow  that  it 
will  probably  be  long  ere  such  a  capacity  for  labour 
reappears.  He  entirely  fulfilled  the  requirements  of 
his  own  age,  by  which  he  was  simply  idolised.  The 
quintessence  of  his  contemporaries'  admiration  is  con- 
centrated in  Vittoria  Colonna's  humble  yet  dignified 
remonstrance  with  him  for  having  failed  to  celebrate 
the  death  of  her  husband  : 


(( 


Unkind  was  Fate^  prohibiting  the  rays 
Of  my  great  Sun  your  kindling  soul  to  sjnite  ; 
For  thus  in  perpetuity  more  bright 

Your  fame  had  been,  more  glorious  his  praise. 

His  memory,  exalted  in  your  lays. 

That  ancient  times  obscure,  and  ours  delight, 
Had  ^scaped  in  fell  Oblivion's  despite 

The  second  death,  that  on  the  spirit  preys. 

Jf  in  your  bosom,  might  infused  be 

My  ardour,  or  my  pen  as  yours  inspired. 
Great  as  the  dead  should  be  the  elegy. 

But  now  I  fear  lest  Heaven  with  wrath  be  fired; 
Toward  you,  for  oT.'ermuch  humility  ; 
Toward  me,  who  have  too  daringly  aspired^ 


Bembo's  Latin  poetry,  of  w^hich  charming  specimens 
may  be  seen  in  Symonds's  Renaissance^  is  better  than  his 
Italian,  for  it  does  not  disappoint.  The  fame  of  Francesco 
Maria  Molza  (1489-1544)  was  in  his  day  hardly  second 
to  Bembo's,  and  w^as  based  on  much  the  same  grounds. 
Like  Bembo,  he  was  an  elegant  Latin  poet,  w^ho  carried 
the  maxims  appropriate  for  composition  in  a  dead 
language  into  a  living  one.  Like  Bembo's,  his  vernacular 
poems,  wath  one  remarkable  exception,  are  models  of 
diction  as  inexpressive  as  harmonious— a  perpetual  silvery 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE 


190 

chime  which  soothes  the  ear,  but  conveys  nothing  to 
the   mind.     The    exception    is    a    poem   m   wh.ch   the 
usual   vagueness   and   emptiness   of   sentmient  assumes 
substance  from  its  pastoral  setting.     The  Nrnja  T^bcrv,a 
in   which    one   of    Molza's   innumerable    light    loves    is 
idealised    as    a   shepherdess,    is    just    such    a    piece    o 
.nosaic   as  Gray's  Elegy.     The  author  has  amassed  al 
the    commonplaces    of    pastoral    poetry,    and,    without 
adding  a  single  idea  of  his  own,  has  combined  them 
into  so  rich   and   glowing  a  picture  that  he  may  wel 
claim  to  have  superseded  the  entire  school  of  pastoral 
vJrsifiers,    the   few    excepted    who    have    derived    their 
inspiration  from  Nature,  like  his  predecessor   1  olitian. 
"  ^iolza   is   to    Politian,"    says   Symonds    "  as   the   rose 
to  the  rosebud."      He  was  born  at  Modena,  but  hv^d 
chiefly   at   Rome,   leaving   his    wife   and   family   in   his 
native  city.      They  would   indeed  have  been   much    in 
the    way,    for    he    was    continually    invylved    in   some 
amour, 'and    his    irregular   ties   ultimately    proved     ata 
to   him        He    was  a  leading   member   of   the   brilliant 
literary  circles  of  Rome  and   Florence,  and   as  a  com- 
panion and   a  man   of  letters  his  contemporaries  have 
nothing  but  praise  for  him. 

Petrarch  is  a  poet  as  much  within  the  scope  of  imita- 
tion as  bcvond  the  pursuit  of  rivalry.     The  swarms  of 
Petrarchi-ts  stun  tlie  ear   and  darken  the  light  of  the 
period  :  Tans.Uo  might  well  say  that  every  hillock  had 
.^rown  a  Parnassus.     They  may  be  found  in  the    he- 
saurus  of  Dolce,  a  series  whose  continuous  publication 
for   so    manv   vears    at   all    events    aftords    proof    that 
this    appetite    for    imitative    verse    was    not    factitious. 
Some   few   stand   forth    from    the  crowd   by  some    ex- 
ceptional  characteristics,  and   it   is  of   these   only  that 


ll 


BERNARDO  TASSO 


191 


i 


we  can  speak.  The  first  of  these  in  chronological 
order  is  Bernardo  Tasso  (1493-1568),  whom  we  have 
already  met  as  the  author  of  the  Amadigi,  In  his 
lyrical  as  in  his  epical  attempts,  Tasso  is  one  of  those 
provoking  poets  who  are  always  trembling  on  the  verge 
of  excellence,  ever  good,  hardly  ever  quite  good  enough. 
Even  the  famous  sonnet  on  his  renunciation  of  his  ladv. 
which,  Dolce  tells  us,  thrilled  Italy,  is  less  eminent  for 
the  beauty  of  the  poetry  than  the  nobility  of  the  senti- 
ment. Once,  however,  straying  within  the  domain  of 
pastoral  poetry,  he  found  and  polished  a  gem  worthy  of 
the  Greek  Anthology  : 


i( 


The  herb  and  floweret  of  my  verdant  shore. 

Shepherd,  thy  pasturing  flock's  possession  be; 

And  thine  the  olive  and  the  mulberry 
That  mantle  these  fair  hillocks  der  and  der. 
But  be  my  fountain's  fresh  and  sparkling  store 

Of  gushing  waters  undisturbed  by  thee. 

For  they  are  vowed  to  Muses*  ministry, 
And  whoso  drinks  is  poet  evermore. 
Solely  for  these  and  for  Apollo  fit. 

And  Loves  and  Nymphs  the  sacred  stream  doth  bursty 

Or  haply  some  fair  swan  may  drink  of  it ; 
But  thou,  if  not  a  swain  uittutored,  f.r:i 

Thy  dues  to  Love  in  melody  acquit. 

Then  with  the  bubbling coohtess  quench  thy  thirst'^ 


Another  poet  of  the  time  vies  with  Bernardo  Tasso 
in  nobility  of  character,  evinced  in  his  case  by  the 
fervour  of  his  patriotism.  The  bulk  of  the  verse  of 
GuiDO  GiTiuicciOXi,  Bishop  of  Fossombrone  (1500-41), 
consists  of  insipid  love-strains  in  the  style  of  Bembo 
and  Molza ;  but  when  he  touches  upon  the  wrongs  and 
misfortunes  of  his  country  he  becomes  inspired,  and 
speaks   in    tones   of    alternate    majesty   and    pathos,    to 


192 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE 


which   the   following  sonnet  superadds  the  charms  of 
fancy  : 

"  The  A  mo  and  the  Tiber  and  the  Po 

This  sad  lament  and  hea-y  plaint  of  mine 

I  hear,  for  solely  I  my  ear  ineline^ 
At  company  with  music  sad  and  low. 
No  more  Heaven's  li:^ht  on  sunny  wave  doth  glow^ 

No  more  the  dwindled  lamps  of  virtue  shine; 

Dark  7oestern  tempests,  dank  and  foul  with  brine^ 
Have  sicept  the  meads  and  laid  the  flowerets  low. 
The  myrtle.  Rivers,  and  the  laurel-spray, 

Deliynt  and  diadem  of  chosen  souls. 

Ami  sacred  shrines  the  blast  hath  borne  away: 
No  more  unto  th  vour  torrent  rolls 

Exultiui^,  or  vour  Naiades  display 

Their  sno-.iy  breasts  and  shining  aureoles'^ 

If  other  Italian  poets  felt  like  Guidiccioni,  they  shunned 
to  give  their  sentiments  utterance.  The  chief  original 
poem  of  Anniiule  Cako  (1507-^^X  the  accomplished 
translator  of  Virgil  and  Longus,  and  one  of  the  best 
letter-writers  of  his  age,  was  a  panegyric  on  the  house 
of  Valois— Fr;///r  alT  ombra  dei  gran  gigli  tforo  {''Hither, 
-where  spread  the  golden  fletirs-de-lis''),  A  few  years 
later,  with  equal  genius  and  equal  insensibility  to  the 
part  that  became  an  Italian,  Caro  turned  to  celebrate 
the  Spanish  conqueror.  Whatever  may  be  thought  of 
the  theme  of  his  poem,  it  is  in  execution  one  of  the  great 
things  of  Italian  poetry  : 

"  Here  the  Fifth  Charles  reposes,  at  whose  name 
Eyes  of  superbest  monarchs  seek  the  ground. 
Whom  Story's  tongue  and  Honour's  trump  resound^ 

Quelling  all  loudest  blasts  of  meaner  fame. 

How  hosts  and  legioned  chiefs  he  overcame. 
Kings,  but  for  him  invincible,  discrowned, 
Sivaved  realms  beyond  Imagination's  bound. 

And  his  o-ujn  mightier  soul  did  rule  and  tame — 


CASA 

This  knows  the  admiring  world,  and  this  the  Sun^ 
That  did  with  envy  and  amazement  see 
His  equal  course  with  equal  glory  rim 

Wide  earth  around;  which  now  accomplished,  he. 
From  heaven  observant  of  the  world  he  won. 
Smiling  inquires,  *  And  toiled  I  thus  for  thee  ? 


193 


J  jj 


# 

i 


Giovanni  della  Casa  (1500-56)  emulated  Caro  in 
the  nobility  of  his  style,  which  would  scarcely  have  been 
expected,  considering  the  licentious  character  of  some 
of  his  verse  and  his  ecclesiastical  profession.  He  does, 
however,  sometimes  attain  a  dignity  and  gravity  which, 
apart  from  the  beauty  of  his  diction,  lift  him  high  out 
of  the  crowd  of  Petrarchists  ;  nor  are  his  themes  in- 
variably amorous.  His  Galateo,  a  treatise  on  politeness, 
has  earned  him  the  name  of  the  Italian  Chesterfield. 
He  would  have  attained  greater  eminence  as  a  man  of 
letters  but  for  the  distractions  of  politics  and  business, 
which  he  deplores  in  the  following  sonnet : 

"  To  woodland  fount  or  solitary  cave 

In  sunlit  hour  I  plained  my  amorous  teen; 

Or  wove  by  light  of  Luna's  lamp  serene 
My  song,  while  yet  to  song  and  love  I  clave; 
Nor  by  thy  side  the  sacred  steep  to  brave 

Refused,  where  rarely  now  is  climber  seen; 

But  cares  and  tasks  ungrateful  intcrvenCy 
And  like  the  weed  I  drift  upon  the  wave. 
And  idly  thus  my  barren  hours  are  spent 

In  realms  of  fountain  and  of  laurel  void. 

Where  but  vain  tinsel  is  accounted  blest. 
Forgive,  then,  if  not  wholly  unalloyed 

My  pleasure  to  behold  thee  eminent 

On  pinnacle  no  other  foot  hath  pre st''* 

Angelo  DI  Costanzo  (1507-91),  already  noticed  as  an 
historian,  is  another  example  of  a  writer  of  sonnets  who 


1 


194 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE 


rose  from  the  crowd  by  the  individiuility  which  he  con- 
trived to  impro^  upon  his  performances.  His  great 
characteristic  is  an  exquisite  elegance,  not,  as  in  some 
other  instances,  veiHng  inanity,  but  usually  the  accom- 
paniment of  something  well  worth  saying.  The  follow- 
ing piece  is  a  good  instance  of  his  power  of  enhancing, 
by  ingenious  embellishment,  a  thought  interesting  and 
attractive  in  itself  : 

*'  Rk'tr,  that  from  thy  Apennine  recess, 

Sivollen  luith  surt^'-e  of  irihutary  sfwiv, 

Com'stfoamink::^  and  thy  tawny  o%>crflow 
Ilurhst  on  Siunnitin  luiles  ivith  hemiloni^  stress ; 
Thy  farther  short-,  lohere  Leroe  awaits  to  Mess^ 

I  ^cek^  and  bv  thy  wrath  unharmed  would  i^o; 

If  thou  intt-ndest  not  my  overthrow, 
With  strini:;ent  curb  thy  furious  flood  repress. 
But  art  thou  verily  resolved  to  kill. 

And purpost'st  that  this  conclusive  day 

Shall  jointly  terminate  my  good  and  ill. 
Grant  me  but  once  to  stem  thy  shock  and  spray  : 

Mv  happy  errand  I  would  fain  fulfil; 

Me  goi fig  spare,  returning  sweep  away^ 

The  general  passion  for  verse  naturally  extended  to 
the  refined  and  accomplished  ladies  of  the  time.  Only 
two,  however,  have  gained  a  permanent  position  in 
Italian  literature,  as  much  by  their  characters  as  by 
their  poetry.  The  muse  of  Vittokia  Coloxxa  (1490- 
1547)  chiefly  prompted  the  apotheosis  of  her  hnsliand, 
the  Marquis  of  Pescara,  **  a  sworded  man  whose  trade 
was  blood,"  and  who,  though  a  great  captain,  scarcely 
possessed  a  single  amiable  or  magnanimous  trait  of 
character.  The  pathos  of  the  situation  surpasses  that 
of  the  verse  which  it  called  forth.  As  a  woman,  Vittoria 
e\'oked    the    enthusiastic    admiration    of    her    contem- 


TANSILLO 


19s 


'% 


poraries,  and  lives  for  -posterity  more  in  the  strains  of 
Michael  Angelo  than  in  her  own. 

The  unliappy  fate  of  Gaspaha  Stampa  (1524-53),  who 
literally  died  of  love,  would  have  preserved  h(;r  name 
without  her  verse  ;  she  was,  nevertheless,  a  true  poetess, 
and  might  have  been  a  great  one  had  she  not,  like  so 
many  poetesses,  struck  upon  the  fatal  rock  of  fluency. 
Could  her  centuries  of  sonnets  be  concentrated  into  a 
dozen,  she  would  rank  high. 

More  truly  a  poet  than  any  of  the  stricter  Petrarchists 
is  a  Neapolitan,  LuiGi  Tansillo,  although  his  advantage 
is  rather  intensity  of  feeling  than  superiority  in  the  poetic 
art.  He  must  indeed  be  admitted  to  have  derogated  in 
some  measure  from  the  high  standard  of  taste  then 
generally  prevalent,  and  to  have  foreshadowed,  though 
but  in  a  very  trifling  degree,  the  extravagances  of  the 
seventeenth  century.  This  may  be  forgiven  to  his 
southern  ardour  and  liveliness,  and  foreign  critics  are 
not  likely  to  perceive  the  little  technical  defects  so 
severely  visited  upon  him  by  his  countrymen.  He  had 
the  unspeakable  advantage  over  his  competitors  of  being 
devoted  to  no  ideal  nymph,  but  to  a  real  and  very  great 
and  very  cold  lady,  the  Marchioness  del  Vasto,  wife  of 
the  \'iceroy  of  Naples.  Such  an  attachment  was  neces- 
sarily Platonic  on  his  part,  and  imaginary,  if  so  much, 
on  the  lady's.  The  flrst  rapture  is  magnificently  ex- 
pressed in  the  sonnet  in  which  the  poor  knight  and 
military  retainer,  whose  business  in  life  was  to  help  in 
clearing  the  Mediterranean  of  Turks,  compares  his  rash 
love  to  the  flight  of  Icarus  : 

**  A^ow  that  my  wings  are  spread  to  my  desire, 

I  he  more  vast  height  witJi draws  the  dwindling  land^ 
Wider  to  wind  these  pinions  i  expand. 


196  ITALIAN  LITERATURE 

And  earth  disdain,  and  higher  fnount  and  higher: 
Nor  of  the  fate  of  Icarus  inquire^ 

Nor  cautions  droops  or  sway  to  either  hand; 

Dead  I  shall  fill,  full  well  J  understand  ; 
But  who  1 17' es  gloriously  as  I  expire  f 
Yet  hear  I  tny  own  heart  that  pleading  cries. 

Stay,  7/1  adman,  whitlier  art  thou  bound?  descend! 

Ruin  is  ready  Rashness  to  chastise. 
But  /,  Fear  not,  though  this  indeed  the  end ; 

Cleai'e  we  the  clouds,  and  praise  our  destinies, 

If  noble  fall  on  ?ioble  flight  attendi'^ 


Suspicion,  jealousy,  bitterly  wounded  feeling,  open 
breach,  and  hollow  reconciliation  make  up  the  remainder 
of  the  sonnets,  the  best  of  which  have  few  superiors  in 
any  literature  for  fire  and  passion.  His  other  poetical 
performances  are  far  from  inconsiderable.  The  best 
known  is  the  sin  of  his  youth,  the  Vcndeminiatore,  whose 
ultra-Fescennine  truth  to  rustic  manners  and  the  licence 
of  the  vintage  brought  it  into  the  Index,  and  its  author 
into  gaol.  In  quite  a  different  key  are  his  delightful 
didactic  poems,  //  Podere,  on  the  management  of  an 
estate,  and  La  Bulla,  on  the  care  of  children,  translated 
by  Roscoe.  Some  of  his  familiar  Capitoli  'ax^  very  pleas- 
ing, and  some  of  his  miscellaneous  poems  are  very  fine, 
especially  this  on  the  Spaniards  slain  by  the  Turks  at 
Castel  Nuovo,  on  the  coast  of  Dalmatia  : 

"  Hail,  scene  of  fated  J  \jlour's  final  stand, 

Re7'ered  for  these  sad  heaps  of  whitening  bone. 
Their  trace  who  other  monument  have  none 

Pyreless  and  to>fil?Iess  on  this  desert  strand ; 

Who  hithenoard frojH  fir  Jberian  land 
To  Adrid's  shores  on  blast  of  battle  blown. 
With  streaming  blood  of  foe  men,  and  their  own. 

Came  to  empurple  foreign  sea  and  sand. 


i 


"■ '  1: 


MICHAEL  ANGELO  197 

Three  hundred  Fabii  gave  immortal  name 

To  ancient  Tiber ;  what  to  Spain  by  death 

Heroic  of  three  thousand  shall  be  given  ? 
Greater  the  host,  more  excellent  the  aim 

Of  warrior  jnartyrs  ;  tltose  their  dying  breath 

Resigned  to  Italy,  and  these  to  heaven^ 


The  graceful  poets  who  thus  tuned  their  harps  to  the 
notes  of  Petrarch  sang  within  the  hearing  of  a  spirit 
of  another  sort,  whose  verses,  had  they  known  them, 
they  would  have  compared  unfavourably  with  their  own 
elegance,  but  whose  appearance  in  their  circle  would 
have  been  like  that  of  Victor  Hugo's  Pan  at  the  banquet 
of  the  Olympians.  Michap:l  Angelo,  the  greatest  Italian 
after  Dante,  had  not,  like  Dante,  acquired  the  secret  of 
poetic  form.  He  indites  as  on  marble  with  mallet  and 
chisel;  but  the  inscription  is  everlasting.  "  Ungram- 
matical,  rude  in  versification,  crabbed  or  obscure  in 
thought,"  as  Symonds  describes  them,  Michael  Angelo's 
sonnets  are  yet  priceless  as  a  revelation  of  the  man, 
more  distinct  than  that  vouchsafed  by  his  painting  or 
sculpture.  These  tell  of  his  tremendous  force ;  the 
deep  springs  of  tenderness  in  his  nature  are  only  to 
be  learned  from  the  poems,  the  most  important  of  which 
are  consecrated  to  Love,  now  ideal  and  impersonal,  now 
expending  itself  upon  some  fair  object,  masculine  or 
feminine,  but  in  either  case  Platonic.  Vittoria  Colonna 
and  Tommaso  de'  Cavalieri  are  the  objects  of  the  poet's 
deepest  attachment.  The  following  sonnet  was  most 
probably  inscribed  to  Cavalieri  : 

^^By  your  eyes'  aid  a  gentle  light  I  see. 

Which  but  for  these  mine  own  would  never  share ; 
By  your  auxiliar  feet  a  load  I  bear 
Which  my  lame  limbs  refuse  to  bear  for  me. 

Ti 


I 


198  ITALIAN  LITERATURE 

/,  plumeiesSy  yet  upon  your  pinions  flee  ; 

When  hctu'cfi  I  secL\  your  soul  conducts  me  there ; 

Blushes  or  pallor  at  your  7vill  I  wear; 
Sun  chills  and  luinter  71'arms  at  your  decree. 
The  fashion  of  your  will  prescriheth  mine  ; 

My  t/iouirht  hath  in  your  thinking  taken  birth  ; 

My  speech  j^iirs  voice  to  your  discourse  unspoken, 
A  sunless  moon  that  by  herself  would  shine^ 

I  -cL'crc  7i'ilhout you  ;  only  seen  on  earth 

By  lii^ht  of  sun  that  on  her  dark  hath  broken.^ 

The  roughness  of  Michael  Angelo's  verse  was  planed 
down  by  the  first  editor,  his  great-nephew,  and  the  true 
text  has  only  been  retrieved  in  our  time. 

Two  religious  poets  stand  aloof  from  the  class  of 
Petrarchists,  rather  by  the  nature  of  their  themes  than 
the  quality  of  their  talent.  Celio  Magno,  a  religious 
poet  of  Protestant  tendencies,  produced  a  hymn  to  the 
Almighty  which  ranks  among  the  best  canzoni  of  the 
period,  and  had  anticipated  Coleridge's  project,  which 
with  him  as  with  Coleridge  remained  a  project,  for 
a  series  of  similar  compositions.  Gabriele  Fiamma, 
Bishop  of  Chioggia,  is  in  general  a  tame  versifier,  but 
ill  two  inspired  moments  produced  two  of  the  most 
beautiful  sonnets  in  the  language  :  one  of  which  is  re- 
markable for  expressing  in  an  ornate  style  the  thought 
of  Heine's  famous  lyric,  "  Mein  Herz  gleicht  ganz  dem 
Meere";  the  other,  apart  from  its  great  beauty,  as  an 
instance  of  a  sonnet  which,  beginning  apparently  in  a 
commonplace  style,  is  vivified  through  and  through  by 
the  last  tercet : 


"  Nei^er  with  such  delight  the  bee  in  spring. 

When  the  full  mead  teems  with  the  novel  flower^ 
The  sweetness  of  the  honey-burdened  bower 
Amasses  for  her  cell  in  wayfaring; 


CHARACTERISTICS  OF  THE  AGE  199 

AV/  with  like  joy,  when  j^ lades  cease  echoing 
The  baying  hound,  no  more  compelled  to  cower 
In  covert,  doth  the  hind  the  forest  scour. 

Panting  for  crystal  rivulet  or  spring  : 

As  [the  sob  acclaijn  tJiat  signifies 

J'assion  of  love  or  awe  divinely  given. 
Or  other  ecstasy  that  God  endears. 

Transported  with  her  bliss  the  spirit  cries; 
How  7'ast  his  rapture  who  inhabits  heaven, 
If  joy  he  hath  more  joyful  thaa  these  tears  I  ^^ 

The   Cinque  Cento   period   of    Italian    poetry,   which 
to   the    men    of   that   day  seemed   the  ne  plus  ultra  of 
artistic  achievement,  has  since  received  less  praise  and 
exerted  less  influence  than  fairly  its  due.     It  was  a  great 
thing  to  have  produced  works  so  perfect  in  form,  and 
to  have  refined  the  language  in  so  eminent  a  degree. 
The  general  belief,  too,  that  the  Italian  poetry  of  this 
age  was  devoid  of  all  but  formal  excellence  involves  a 
great  exaggeration.     It  is  true  that  the  literature  of  the 
period  is  overloaded  with  masses  of  mechanical  and  con- 
ventional stuff,  but  Guidiccioni  and  Casa  and  Tansillo 
are  capable  on  occasion  of  expressing  themselves  with 
an  energy  the   more  impressive  from  being  restrained 
within  the  limits  prescribed  by  a  chastened  taste,  and 
many  Italian  sonnets  are  even  better  fitted  to  be  breathed 
from  the  trumpet  than  warbled  to  the  lute.      A  great 
development  in  this  direction  might  have  been  expected, 
but  for  the  extinction  of  political  and  spiritual  liberty, 
i      What  the  Italian  lyric  might  have  become  we  see  in 
Milton,  who  could  have  written  neither  his  Lycidas  nor 
his  sonnets  without  Tuscan  models.     He  undoubtedly 
weighted,  without  overweighting,  both  canzone  and  sonnet 
with  thought  to  a  degree  unparalleled  in  Italy,  but  how 
much  he  owed  to  Italians  appears  by  a  comparison  of 


200 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE 


his  sonnets  with  those  of  Wordsworth,  who  neglected 
the  traditions  which  Milton  carefully  observed.  Words- 
w^orth  has  even  more  ripeness  of  thought  and  moral 
elevation  than  his  predecessor ;  but  while  Milton's  work 
is  immaculate,  Wordsworth's  is  full  of  flaws. 

With  all  its  defects,  the  poetry  of  the  Cinque  Cento 
will  survive  as  a  proof  that  rules  of  art  exist  and  may 
be  ascertained,  and  cannot  be  safely  departed  from  ; 
no  less  than  as  an  example  of  the  embellishment  which 
even  ordinary  thoughts  may  receive  from  nobility  of 
diction  and  breadth  of  style  ;  and  as  an  instance  of  the 
great  part  which  a  literature  not  too  original  or  too 
racy  of  the  native  soil  may  play  in  moulding  and 
enriching  the  literatures  of  neighbouring  and  less  ad- 
vanced nations.  Nor  can  it  be  fairly  judged  by  itself 
as  an  isolated  phenomenon.  It  was  a  part,  and  far 
from  the  most  important  part,  of  a  stupendous  artistic 
movement,  which  spoke  more  readily  and  eloquently  with 
brush  and  chisel  than  with  pen,  and  expressed  through 
their  medium  much  that  in  an  age  more  exclusively 
literary  would  have  been  committed  to  paper. 


\ 


CHAPTER   XV 

HUMOROUS  POETRY— THE  MOCK-HEROIC 

Numerous  as  are  the  poets  we  have  briefly  passed  in 
review,  many  more  might  have  been  added  whom  it 
would  have  been  agreeable  to  have  met  in  the  barren 
fifteenth  century.  The  Renaissance  had  by  this  time 
entered  into  the  blood  of  Italy,  and  produced  one  of 
the  best  effects  of  impregnation  with  the  classical  spirit— 
a  passion  forjame.  This  we  find  as  constantly  assigned 
as^a  motive  of  action  in  public  affairs  in  that  day  as 
humanitarian  inducements  are  in  ours  ;  and  when  it  is 
considered  that  the  sincerity  of  the  former  motive  is 
much  less  questionable  than  that  of  the  latter,  it  is  not 
clear  that  the  comparison  is  wholly  to  the  advantage  of 
the  nineteenth  century.  Almost  every  man  of  any  mark 
was  deeply  influenced  by  it,  and  it  was  one  of  the 
most  potent  instruments  in  stimulating  both  literary 
and  artistic  production.  The  drawback  was  that  the 
aspirant  to  fame  was  naturally  inclined  to  take  the 
easiest  and  most  fashionable  path,  and  thus  the  same 
1-.^. pulse  which  braced  effort  suppressed  originality. 

The  sentiment  of  an  age  mainly  under  the  sway  of 
Petrarch  naturally  encouraged  the  production  of  lyrical 
poetry,  and  other  styles  were  neglected  in  comparison. 
Apart  from  the  epical  attempts  which  have  been  men- 
tioned, and  the  dramatic  and  humorous  poems  to  which 


y 


20X 


202 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE 


allusion    remains   to   be  made,   the   period  has   little   to 
show  apart  from  the  lyric,  with  the  exception  of  some 
didactic    poems  —  the    Juilia   and    the    Podcre   of    Luigi 
Tansillo,  the  Xautica  of  Baldi,  the  Caccia  of  Valvasone, 
end  two  otliers  modelL-d  after  Virgil,  the  Coltivazionc  of 
Luca  Alaiiiaiini,  and  the  Api  of  Giovanni  Rucellai,  both 
excellent  examples  of  tiie  description  of   poetry  which 
owes    most   to   artifice    and   least    to    inspiration.      This 
might  perhaps  pass  for  a  general  character  of  the  poetry 
of  the  period,   which  ranks  with  the  ages  of  Augustus 
and  Anne  as  an  example  of  what  exquisite  culture  can 
and  cannot  effect  in  the  absence  of  creative  power.     It 
was  of  high  value  to  succeeding  periods  by  bequeathing 
to  them  a  norm  and  standard   of  good  taste  by  which 
to   chasten    their   frequent    aberrations ;    and,    notwith- 
standing its  almost  academical  character,  it  was  actually 
in  vital  relation  with  the  literary  appetite  of  its  limited 
but  highly  accomplished  public.      There  was  not,  says 
Dolce,  a  cultivated  person  in  Italy  who  could  not  repeat 
before  it  was  in  print  Bernardo  Tasso's   sonnet  resi^jn- 
ing   his    mistress    to    his    successful    rival,   a   fact   which 
proves  not  only  the  existence  of  a  general  appreciation 
of  poetry  independent  of  the  machinery  of  reviewing  and 
the  printing-press  itself,  but  also  a  general  preference  for 
its  most  refined  and  dignified  examples. 

The  didactic  poems  of  which  w^e  have  spoken  claim 
the  less  attention,  inasmuch  as  they  were  in  no  respect 
national.  The  rules  for  good  didactic  poetry  are  the 
same  in  all  languages,  and  any  accomplished  versifier 
wnll  instruct  in  agriculture  or  the  chase  in  much  the 
same  manner  in  any  country,  however  his  local  colour- 
ing may  vary  with  his  climate.  It  is  otherwise  with 
satirical,  familiar,  and  mock-heroic  poetry.     In  all  these 


SATIRISTS 


203 


' 


styles  Italian  work  is  individual  and  characteristic.    Satiric 
traits  are  frequent  enough  in  the  contemporaries  of  Dante, 
and  from  one  point  of  view  Dante  himself  may  be  re- 
garded as  a  great  satirist.     The  professed  satire,  never- 
theless, of  modern  Italy  derives  from  Horace  rather  than 
Juvenal ;  it  aims  at  good-humoured  raillery  rather  than 
scathing  vehemence  or  corroding  virulence  ;  and  its  im- 
petus is  further  moderated  by  its  being  generally  com- 
posed in  the  easy  and  garrulous  terza  rwia.     Alessandro 
Vinciguerra  (born  1480)  appears  to  have  first  imparted 
this  stamp  ;   but  the  great  exemplar  is  Ariosto,  whose 
satires  are  not  the  least  ornament  of  his  poetic  crown, 
yielding  little  in  facetious  urbanity  to  his  model  Horace. 
The    vigorous    satires    of    Luigi    Alamanni,    imitated 
in   English  by  Sir  Thomas  Wyat,  evince  a  remarkable 
freedom   of   speech.      Bentivoglio,  Aretino,   Anguillara, 
and  other  writers   of   note  followed  in   his  track  with 
varying  success.      The   first  to  employ  blank  verse  in 
satire   was    Lodovico    Paterno,   who    is    perhaps    more 
exceptionally  distinguished  for  having  achieved  an  epi- 
thalamium    to    Queen    Mary   of    England   without    the 
least  allusion  to  her  restoration  of  the  Roman  Catholic 
religion.     The  Deccnnali  of    Machiavelli,    a   highly-con- 
densed sketch  in  verse  of  the  events  of  his  time,  may 
also  be  regarded  as  a  satire  ;  but  his  reputation  as  a  poet 
rather  arises  from  his  Capitoli,  disquisitions  in  verse  in 
which  Tansillo  and  many  others  also  excelled,  and  whose 
easy  familiarity  is  hardly  to  be  paralleled  in  any  other 
literature,  and  from  his  elegant  versification  of  portions 
of  Apuleius's  Golden  Ass.     FRANCESCO  Coppetta  (1510- 
1554),  an  excellent  writer  of  sonnets,  extended  the  domain 
of  poetry  by  constituting  himself  the  first  laureate  of  the 
feline  species.     His  ode  on  the  loss  of  his  cat  (di  tutta  la 


A. 


204 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE 


Soria  gloria  e  splendore,  and  consequently  an  Angora)  is  a 
curious  blending  of  parodies  of  Petrarch  with  genuine 
feehng.  He  eventually  finds  comfort  in  the  conclusion 
that  the  object  of  his  affections  has  been  appropriated 
by  Jupiter  and  placed  among  the  constellations.  Two 
brilliant  stars  never  seen  before  have  of  late  been  ob- 
servable in  the  firmament,  and  the  inference  is  obvious. 

Ariosto  and  Machiavelli,  nevertheless,  although  geni- 
uses of  the  first  order,  rank  in  familiar  poetry  below 
P^RANCESCO  Berni,  better  equipped  for  it  by  nature  and 
entirely  devoted  to  its  practice.     Berni,  born  at  Lam- 
porecchio,  near  Florence,  about  1497,  was  a  dependant 
of  the  Medici,  successively  attached  to  Cardinal  Bibbiena 
and  to  Bishop  Ghiberti,  Papal  datary.     His  life  was  con- 
sequently for  a  long  time   spent   at    Rome,  where   he 
enjoyed   the   friendship   of  the   most   eminent   men   of 
letters  of  the  period,  executed  the  remodelled  version 
of  Boiardo's  Orlando  Innamorato  by  which  his  name  is 
best  known,  and  produced  the  numerous  Capitoli,  which 
would  stand  high  as  examples  of  easy  familiar  verse, 
were  it  not  for  their  frequent  indecency.     They  gave  the 
pattern   of   the  style  {Bemesque)  which  has  derived  its 
name  from  him,  and  in  wliich  he  has  had  many  suc- 
cessors,  but   no   absolute   rival.      Humour,   as   Roscoe 
remarks,  is  very  local.     Berni  loses  much,  not  merely 
by  translation,   but    on    perusal    by   a   foreigner.     It   is 
enough  for  his  fame  if  he  continues  to  be  appreciated 
in  his  own   country,  and  that   nothing  worse  happens 
to  him  abroad  than  must  equally  happen  to  the  author 
of  ^  Htidibras  or  7i  Jobsiad,     How  well  some  portions 
of  his  work  lend  themselves  to  translation  in  congenial 
hands  may  appear  from  a  specimen,  rendered  by  Leigh 
Hunt,  of  the  poem  whose  subject  is  the  author's  own 


BERNI 


205 


I 


prodigious    laziness.      His   portrait   of  himself    is  very 
lifelike,  and  probably  very  accurate  : 

"  The  inan^for  all  that^  tuas  a  happy  ma7t ; 

Thought  not  too  much;  ifidulgcd  no  gloomy  fit; 
Folks  wished  him  well.     Prince^  pewiant^  artisan^ 

Every  one  loved  him;  for  the  rogie  had  wit, 
And  knew  how  to  amuse.     His  fancy  ran 

On  thousands  of  odd  things  which  he  had  writ : 
Certain  mad  waggeries  in  the  shape  ofpoems^ 
With  strange  elaborations  of  their  proems. 

Choleric  he  was  withal.,  whe?t  fools  reproved  him; 

Free  of  his  tongue,  as  he  was  frank  of  heart; 
Ambition,  avarice,  neither  of  these  moved  him ; 

True  to  his  word;  caressing  luithout  art; 
A  lover  to  excess  of  those  that  lotted  him; 

Yet,  if  he  met  with  hate,  could  play  apart 
Which  showed  the  fiercest  he  had  found  his  mate 
Still  he  was proner far  to  love  than  hate. 

In  perso7i  he  was  big,  yet  fight  a?td  lean. 

Had  long  thin  legs,  big  nose,  and  a  large  face; 

Eyebrows  which  there  was  little  space  between; 
Deep-set,  blue  eyes ;  and  beard  in  such  good  case 

That  the  poor  eyes  would  scarcely  have  been  seen 
Had  it  been  suffered  to  forget  its  place  ; 

But,  not  approvi?ig  beards  to  that  amount, 

7 he  owner  brought  it  to  a  sharp  account." 

Berni's  death  did  him  more  honour  than  his  life.  The 
suppressed  dedication  to  the  twentieth  canto  of  his 
Orlando  seems  to  prove  that  he  had  become  serious  in 
his  later  years,  and  fallen  under  Protestant  influences  ; 
but  this  was  unknown  to  Cardinal  Cibo,  who  deemed 
him  the  right  sort  of  man  to  commend  a  poisoned 
chalice  to  the  lips  of  Cardinal  Salviati;  and  his  refusal, 
there  is  every  reason  to  believe,  cost  him  his  own  life 
(^S35)«     He  died  with  strong  symptoms  of  poison,  was 


2o6 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE 


buried  hastily  without  epitaph  or  monument,  and,  al- 
though his  works  were  collected,  nothing  was  said  of  the 
author.  This  sudden  silcncj  corroborates  the  suspicion 
of  his  Protestantism. 

Berni's  chief  characteristics  as  a  poet  are  graceful  ease 
and  perfect  mastery  of  style  and  diction.  He  is  fluent 
and  entirely  unembarrassed,  never  at  a  loss  for  the  right 
word,  and  handles  the  difticult  tcraa  riina  with  the  facility 
of  prose.  This  command  of  language  would  have  raised 
him  high  if  he  had  possessed  any  of  the  elements  of 
greatness  ;  but  he  is  incapable  of  elevated  sentiment,  and 
has  the  good  sense  never  to  aspire  to  it.  What  is  most 
admirable  in  him,  his  poetical  gift  apart,  is  the  evident 
sincerity  and  consistency  of  his  Epicurean  view  of  life, 
and  his  eupeptic  sanity.  As  regards  his  strictly  original 
compositions,  he  occupies  about  the  same  position  in 
Italian  poetry  as  Goldsmith  would  have  filled  in  English 
if  he  had  written  nothing  but  Retaliations  and  Haunches 
of  I  'cnisou.  In  his  rifaciniento  of  Boiardo's  Orlando  Inna^ 
inorato  he  ha^  attempted  something  more  considerable, 
and,  from  his  own  point  of  view,  with  much  success. 
Modern  taste  will  hardly  sympathise  with  his  disfigure- 
ment of  the  romantic  grace  and  simple  sincerity  of  the 
original,  for  the  mere  sake  of  heightening  the  comic 
element  and  improving  its  style.  In  his  own  day  men 
thought  ditlerently,  and  it  must  be  admitted  that  the 
disparity  between  Boiardo's  comparatively  unadorned 
groundwork  and  the  brilliant  superstructure  of  Ariosto 
marred  the  continuitv  of  the  Orlando  as  a  whole,  and 
that  the  chasm  may  well  have  seemed  to  require  filling 
up.  Berni  could  not  impart  the  special  qualities  of 
Ariosto,  but  he  could  bring  Boiardo's  style  more  nearly 
up  to  Ariosto's  level,  and  he  could  adorn  his  original  by 


BERNFS  ORLANDO 


207 


graceful  introductions  to  the  respective  cantos.  Both 
these  objects  have  been  achieved  with  taste  and  success  ; 
and  although  Boiardo's  comparatively  artless  composi- 
tion is  still  the  best,  as  nearest  to  Nature,  it  cannot  be 
denied  that  Berni's  alterations  nuist  have  appeared  to 
his  contemporaries  great  improvements,  and  that  his 
embellishments  may  be  read  with  abundant  pleasure. 
Conscious  of  his  lack  of  poetical  invention,  he  has 
abstained  from  interfering  with  the  narrative.  His  work 
w^as  not  published  until  after  his  death,  and  there  is 
reason  to  suspect  that  it  was  considerably  adulterated  by 
or  at  the  instance  of  the  great  literary  bully  of  the  day, 
Pietro  Aretino. 

It  does  not  appear  that  Berni  had  any  intention  of 
parodying  the  Orlando  Innamorato  in  his  rifaciniento ;  he 
simply  wished  to  bring  it,  in  his  conception,  nearer  to 
the  literary  level  of  the  continuation  which  had  super- 
seded it,  and  deemed  that  this  could  be  best  efTected  by 
an  infusion  of  humour  and  satire.  It  w^ould  be  a  still 
greater  error  to  assume,  with  some  modern  Italian  critics, 
an  intention  on  the  part  of  Boiardo  and  Ariosto  of  paro- 
dying the  old  chivalric  romance.  They  merely  desired 
to  adapt  it  to  the  spirit  of  their  own  age,  as  Tennyson 
has  adapted  the  Morte  d! Arthur  to  ours,  and  their 
sprightliness  is  the  correlative  of  his  moral  earnestness. 
Ariosto  is  less  reverent  of  his  original  than  Boiardo,  but 
he  keeps  within  bounds.  The  great  success  of  his  poem, 
however,  was  sure  to  evolve  a  bona-fide  parodist,  as  in 
our  day  Mark  Twain  has  capered  with  cap  and  bells  in 
the  wake  of  Tennyson.  The  Italian  Mark  Twain  was 
Teofilo  Folengo  (1491-1544),  known  under  his  pseu- 
donym of  Merlinus  Cocaius  as  a  distinguished  cultivator 
of  macaronic  poetry,  a  by-path  of  literature  w^hich  we 


2o8 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE 


TASSONI 


209 


are  compelled  to  leave  unexplored.  He  was  a  dissipated 
runaway  monk,  who  repented,  became  serious,  and 
resought  his  cell  just  as  he  seemed  within  an  ace  of 
turning  Protectant.  His  Orlandino  is  a  burlesque  upon 
the  poems  of  chivalry,  with  pieces  of  genuine  poetry 
interspersed,  and  many  digressions  on  the  corruptions 
uf  the  age,  especially  the  vices  of  the  religious  orders. 
It  is  unlinished.  What  was  published  is  said  to  have 
been  written  in  three  months,  a  statement  confirmed 
by  the  energy  of  the  verse. 

It  was  a  great  step  in  Greek  comedy  w^hen  the  mytho- 
logical  parodies  which   had   constituted   the  substance 
of  the  middle  comedy  were  replaced  by  the  picture  o^ 
contemporary  manners  which  formed  the  staple  of  the 
new.     So    great    an    advance  could   not   be   made   by 
Alessaxdro  Tassoxi  (1565-1638),  the  chief  representa- 
tive of  serio-comic  poetry  in  the  seventeenth  century,  for 
his  age  would  not  have  tolerated  it;  but  he  effected  much 
in  the  same  direction  by  converting  the  mere  parody  of 
the  chivalric  romance  which  liad  satisfied  his  predeces- 
sors into  the  mock-heroic  epic,  a  form  of  literature  which, 
if  he  did  not  invent,  he  may  claim  to  have  perfected. 
Instead  t )f  contriving  burlesque  variations  upon  Ariosto, 
he  took  a  real  incident  of  a  serio-comic  nature — the  war 
w^hich  in  the  thirteenth  century  had  actually  broken  out 
between  the  republics  of  Modena  and  Bologna  respect- 
ing a  bucket   carried   off   by   the    former.     The   treat- 
ment is  admirable  ;  the  characters,  some  of  whom  are 
historical,  and  others  sketched   after  Tassoni's  contem- 
poraries, have   an    air   of  reality  altogether  wanting  to 
the  personages  of  F'olengo's  parodies  ;  there  is  enough 
of  idyllic  charm  and  tender  pathos   here  and   there  to 
approve  the  wTiter  a  true   poet,  wliile    humour   domi- 


nates, and  many  of  the  sarcasms  are  really  profound.  A 
more  biting  irony  on  the  wretched  dissensions  which 
had  been  the  ruin  of  Italy  cannot  be  conceived  ;  and, 
notwithstanding  a  subordinate  purpose  of  deriding 
Tasso's  languid  imitators,  and  the  personal  quarrel 
which  prompted  composition  in  the  first  instance,  such 
w^as  probably  the  main  purpose  oS  the  writer,  in  his 
political  sentiments  and  aspirations  a  statesman  of  the 
type  of  Machiavelli  and  Guicciardini,  who  burned  with 
hatred  of  the  Spanish  oppressor,  but,  except  for  the  two 
Philippics  he  composed  in  demonstration  of  the  real 
hollowness  of  the  Spanish  powder,  could  find  no  other 
vent  for  his  patriotism  than  his  poetry,  and  wasted  his 
life  in  the  service  of  petty  princes.  La  Secchia  Rapita 
( TJic  Rape  of  the  Bucket)  was  published  under  a  pseudonym 
at  Paris  in  1622,  having  long  circulated  in  manuscript. 
Tassoni  also  showed  himself  a  bold  if  bilious  critic  of 
Petrarch,  against  whose  predominance  a  reaction  was 
declaring  itself,  and  participated  in  the  general  anti- 
Aristotelian  movement  of  his  times  by  a  volume  of 
miscellaneous  reflections. 

A  contemporary  of  Tassoni  is  usually  named  along 
with  him  as  a  master  of  the  heroi-comic  style,  but  is  in 
every  respect  greatly  his  inferior.  This  is  Francesco 
Bracciolixi  (1566-1645),  whose  pen,  if  he  really  meant 
to  serve  the  Church  by  ridiculing  the  classical  mytho- 
logy, should  have  been  wielded  a  century  sooner.  Part 
of  the  humour  of  his  Schema  dcgli  Dei  consists  in  the 
unconscious  anachronism.  It  manifests  considerable 
fertility  of  invention,  and  has  survived  the  author's  four 
epics,  placed  as  these  were  immediately  after  Tasso's 
by  good  judges  in  his  own  day.  The  Malmantile 
Racquistato  of    Loren  o   Lippi   the   painter,  the   delight 


2IO 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE 


of  the  philologist  for  its  idiomatic  Tuscan,  is  remark- 
able for  embalming  much  local  folk-lore,  and  so  many 
local  phrases  as  to  be  shorter  than  its  own  glossary. 

Two  n:ore  recent  examples  of  the  mock-heroic  epic 
may  be  included  here  to  complete  the  subject.  The  RiC' 
ciardetto  of  XICCOLO  FORTEGUERKI,  published  under  the 
pseudonym  of  Carteromaco,  has  received  much  merited 
and  more  unmerited  praise.  The  author  (1670-1730)  was 
a  prelate  of  the  Roman  court,  and  so  great  a  favourite 
of  Pope  Clement  XII.  tliat  he  is  said  to  have  died 
from  mortiiication  at  having  displeased  his  patron  by 
neglecting  to  ask  for  a  vacant  appointment.  His  poem 
burlesques  the  chivalric  epics  of  Ariosto  and  others, 
not  with  the  rufined  raillery  of  a  Berni,  but  in  a  style 
of  broad,  coarse  buffoonery.  It  was  published  after  his 
death,  when  his  friends  sought  to  extenuate  its  unclerical 
character  by  alleging  that  it  had  been  undertaken  for  a 
wager,  composed  in  spare  intervals  of  time,  and  never 
designed  for  publication.  All  these  statements  seem  to 
be  groundless.  It  has  ccnsiderable  merit  as  a  burlesque, 
and  some  passages  indicate  a  talent  for  serious  poetry 
which  might  have  developed  into  somethmg  consider- 
able ;  in  the  main,  however,  the  abihty  displayed  is  of 
a  low  though  drastic  strain.  The  best  idea  is  that  of 
making  the  Saracen  champion  Ferau  turn  hermit,  a 
character  which  he  supports  less  in  the  fashion  of  St. 
Jerome  than  of  Friar  Tuck. 

It  seems  an  instance  of  apparent  injustice  in  preva- 
lent literary  opinion  that  the  Ricciardetto  should  be  so 
widely  known,  while  no  less  a  poem  than  Leopardi's 
Supplement  {Paralipomcni)  to  Homer's  Battle  of  the 
Frogs  and  the  Mice  is  hardly  mentioned.  The  wonder, 
however,  is  not  so  great  as  it  seems.     Forteguerri  wrote 


LEOPARDI'S  PARALIPOMENI 


211 


, 


fi 


i 


what  all  could  understand,  while  Leopardi  only  cared  to 
please  exceptional  readers,  and  was,  moreover,  compelled 
to  shroud  much  of  his  satire  in  obscurity  for  fear  of  the 
ruling  powers.  The  allegory,  nevertheless,  is  sufficiently 
transparent.  The  vanquished  mice  are  the  people  of  Italy ; 
the  frogs  are  the  priesthood  and  other  accomplices  of  the 
powers  of  darkness  ;  the  crabs,  who  turn  the  scale  in 
the  latter's  favour,  are  the  Austrians.  The  w^eakness  and 
disunion  of  the  oppressed,  no  less  than  the  brutality  of 
the  oppressor,  are  depicted  with  the  most  refined  sar- 
casm. Nothing  can  be  more  humorous,  for  example,  than 
the  crab's  exposition  to  the  mouse  of  the  principle  of 
the  balance  of  power  ;  and  through  all  the  fancy  and 
drollery  pierce  the  grief  and  rage  of  a  patriotic  Italian. 
There  are  also  fine  flashes  of  true  poetry,  especially  near 
the  end,  when  the  adventurous  mouse  visits  the  under- 
world of  his  species  ;  and  Ariosto  is  parodied  as  w^ell 
as  Dante.  The  satire,  nevertheless,  transcends  the  ap- 
preciation of  ordinary  readers ;  and  it  certainly  does 
appear  somewhat  singular  that  the  fastidious  author, 
wiio  composed  so  sparingly  and  with  such  difficulty 
upon  the  most  exalted  themes,  should  have  bestowed  so 
much  labour  upon  ay>//  d esprit. 


CHAPTER  XVI 


THE  NOVEL 


The  novel  presents  one  of  the  most  remarkable  examples 
in  literary  history  of  arrested  development,  and  of  all 
departments  of  literature  is  perhaps  the  only  one  which 
failed  to  attain  perfection  in  the  hands  of  the  ancients. 
Great  progress  is  indeed  observable  from  its  first  artless 
beginnings  under  the  Pliaraohs,  so  recently  recovered 
for  us  ;  but  having  advanced  far  along  several  lines,  it 
becomes  stationary  upon  all.  The  germ  of  the  pica- 
resque novel  is  clearly  discernible  in  Petronius,  of  the 
novel  of  adventure  in  Apuleius,  of  erotic  fiction  in 
Longus ;  but  these  examples  apparently  remain  ineffec- 
tual. Either  the  path  is  not  prosecuted  at  all,  or  it  leads 
to  mere  repetition.  No  new  element  appears  until  we 
encounter  the  chivalric  romance,  which  in  Spain  pro- 
duced an  extensive  prose  literature,  but  in  Italy  ran 
almost  entirely  to  verse.  The  more  elaborate  romances 
of  Boccaccio,  indeed,  disclose  influences  from  this 
quarter  ;  but  their  reputation  was  slight  in  comparison 
with  those  short  and  familiar  tales,  commonly  founded 
upon  some  anecdote  and  dealing  with  scenes  and  per- 
sonages of  real  life,  which  prescribed  the  form  for  the 
national  novelette.  A  more  distinctively  national  type 
never  existed.  The  extraordinary  thing  is  that  the  nation 
never  got  beyond  it.     It  should  have  seemed  an  obvious 


212 


ITALIAN  NOVELISTS 


213 


' 


advance  to  lengthen  the  stories  ;  to  stimulate  surprise 
and  suspense  by  greater  intricacy  of  plot ;  to  embellish 
by-  elaborate  description  ;  to  depict  character  with  ful- 
ness and  exactness  ;  to  employ  fiction  for  the  ventila- 
tion of  ideas.  Precedents  for  all  these  improvements, 
except  the  last,  might  have  been  found  in  the  classical 
romances,  and  it  might  have  been  expected  that  fiction 
w^ould  have  experienced  the  same  development  as  other 
branches  of  literature.  On  the  contrary,  the  last  Italian 
novelette  is  as  far  from  the  novel  of  the  nineteenth 
century  as  the  first,  and  the  most  powerful  literary  agent 
of  good  or  evil,  next  to  the  equally  modern  newspaper, 
remained  to  be  created  in  recent  times.  Whatever  the 
defects  of  the  Italian  novel  of  the  sixteenth  century,  it 
w^as  nevertheless,  unlike  the  drama,  a  thoroughly  national 
form  of  composition,  it  was  far  in  advance  of  anything 
of  the  kind  existing  elsewhere,  and  it  exerted  great  influ- 
ence on  the  literature  of  other  countries  as  the  general 
storehouse  of  dramatic  plots. 

It  is  no  doubt  to  the  credit  of  Italian  novelists  as 
artists  that  they  did  not  overload  their  stories  with 
didactic  purpose  ;  but  this  w^as  an  error  which,  writing 
mainly  to  amuse,  they  lay  under  little  temptation  to 
commit.  None  of  them  were  endowed  with  creative 
imagination  ;  none  transcended  the  sphere  of  ordinary 
experience,  or  showed  the  least  inclination  to  effect  for 
prose  fiction  what  Boiardo  and  Ariosto  had  accom- 
plished for  narrative  poetry.  Their  notti  piaccvoli  were 
not  Arabian  Nights.  Their  object  of  amusing  could  con- 
sequently only  be  achieved  by  keeping  close  to  actual 
manners,  and  we  may  depend  upon  receiving  from  them 
a  tolerably  accurate  picture  of  Italian  society  in  so  far 
as  it  suited  them  to  present  it ;  although  the  portion  that 
15 


( 


214 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE 


SACCHETTI 


215 


best  lent  itself  to  their  objects  was  the  most  licentious 
and  corrupt,  and  the  loose  women  dnd  salacious  priests 
who  recur  in  their  tales  from  generation  to  generation, 
though  by  no  means  creatures  of  imagination,  are  still 
far  from  typical  of  the  entire  society  of  Italy.  Like  the 
masks  of  the  Greek  comedy,  like  the  rakes  and  topers  of 
the  English  comedy  of  the  Restoration  and  Revolution, 
they  are  in  a  certain  degree  traditional  and  conventional. 
Modern  fiction  is  encyclopaedic  :  no  class  of  the  com- 
munity is  outside  its  scope.  Italian  hction  was  eclectic, 
restricted  by  a  tacit  convention  to  what  w^as  deemed  its 
appropriate  sphere.  The  history  of  pictorial  and  plastic 
art  has  been  reproduced  in  modern  hction  ;  the  property 
of  the  connoisseur  has  become  the  possession  of  the 
nation.  Hence,  whatever  the  literary  merits  of  the  Italian 
novelists  of  this  period,  whatever  the  fidelity  with  which 
they  reproduce  the  social  atmosphere  of  the  time,  their 
WT^rks  all  taken  together  count  for  less  in  the  history  of 
the  human  mind  than  those  of  a  single  first-class  modern 
novelist  such  as  Dickens  or  Balzac. 

Boccaccio's  immediate  successors  as  novelists  are 
Fra\xo  Sacchetti  and  Giovanni  Fiorextixo,  already 
mentioned  as  poets  of  the  hfteenth  cLMitury.  Sacchetti 
( 1 335-1410)  had  in  his  youth  been  a  merchant,  and  had 
travelled  much  both  in  Italy  and  in  Slavonian  countries. 
After  his  return  he  became  a  Florentine  magistrate,  and 
filled  some  important  public  offices.  He  was  a  man  of 
solid  and  humorous  wisdom,  who  instructed  his  times, 
partly  by  religious  and  moral  discourses,  w^hich  fre- 
quently display  great  liberality  of  feeling,  partly  by  his 
stories,  which,  apart  from  their  literary  merits,  afford  a 
valuable  picture  of  a  society  half-way  on  the  road  from 
barbarism   to   civilisation.      The    majority    are   founded 


on   real   occurrences,  generally  humorous,  though   the 
humour  is  not   always   as  visible  to  us   as   to  his  con- 
temporaries ;     but    sometimes    tragic.      Some,    as   with 
Boccaccio,   are    derived    from    folk-lore   in    the    Ges^a 
Romanomm  or   the  Fabliaux.      All    are  recounted  with 
extreme  simplicity  and  brevity.     The  art  of  working  up 
a  single  incident  into  a  long  story  by  subtle  delineation 
of  character,  elaborate  description,  and  ingenious  plot 
and   underplot,  was  then  unknown.^      Sacchetti   is  the 
straightforw^ard  raconteur  and  nothing  more,  but  he  de- 
serves as  much  praise  for  the  ease  of  his  narrative  as  for 
the  purity  of  his  style.     He  can  hardly  be  considered  as 
an  imitator  of  Boccaccio,  who  is  always  the   poet  and 
man  of  letters,  while  Sacchetti  rather  produces  the  im- 
pression  of   an    ordinary    Florentine   gentleman   telling 
stories   after   dinner   w^th    no    special    care   for   artistic 
effect,  which  nevertheless  he   attains  by  the  plain  good 
sense   which   bids  him  go  straight  to    his  subject  and 
subordinate   minor  details  to   the  really  essential.      His 
tales  are  single,  not  set  in  a  framework  like  Boccaccio's. 

This  is  not  the  case  with  his  contemporary  Ser  Giovanni 
Fiorentino,  author  of  the  Pecorone  (Great  Stupid),  who 
has  exposed  himself  to  ridicule  by  the  quaintness  of  his 
introductory  machinery.  A  friar  and  a  nun  are  sup- 
posed to  meet  weekly  in  the  parlour  of  a  convent,  and 
console  themselves  for  the  insuperable  obstacles  to  their 
attachment  by  telling  stories,  upon  the  merits  of  which 
they  compliment  each  other  extravagantly.  The  tales, 
however,  are  interesting,  well  told,  and  greatly  esteemed 

^  The  Italian  style  of  novel  has  been  imitated  in  English  in  Stories  after 
Nature,  by  Charles  Wells,  author  oi  Joseph  and  his  Brethren,  with  great 
success,'  except  for  Wells's  deficiency  in  humour,  and  his  employment  of  a 
more  poetical  diction  than  the  Italians  would  have  allowed  themselves. 


teMaBaMMmiillMlllll>llf'j-;;j^*jg'gg;^^ 


1/ 


2l6 


ITALIAN   LITERATURE 


for  the  excellence  of  Iheir  style.  Like  Sacchetti's,  they 
are  mostly  f^eniiine  anecdotes,  or  at  least  founded  upon 
fact  or  popular  tradition  ;  some  are  taken  with  little 
alteration  from  Villani's  Chronicles.  Nothing  is  cer- 
tainly known  of  the  author,  except  that  he  began  to 
write  his  t.iles  in  1378  at  the  Castle  of  Dovadola,  in 
compulsory  or  voluntary  exile  from  his  native  city.  He 
is  believed  to  h:ive  been  a  notary,  and  a  partisan  of  the 
Guelf  faction. 

Giovanni  da  Prato,  author  of  //  Paradin  dcgli  Albertt 
(about  1420)  also  deserves  mention  here,  on  account  of 
the  short  stories  inserted  into  his  ethical  dialogues ;  but 
the  lirst  novelist  of  much  importance  after  Giovanni 
Fiorentino  is  Massuccio  of  Salerno,  a  Neapolitan,  who 
seems  to  have  been  a  man  of  rank,  and  to  have  been  for 
some  time  in  the  service  of  the  Duke  of  Milan.  He 
wrote  about  1470,  and  his  tales  were  lirst  printed  in 
1476.  The  celebrity  which  he  continues  to  enjoy  is,  it 
may  be  feared,  mainly  owing  to  his  character  as  the 
most  licentious  of  the  Italian  novelists  in  fact,  although, 
if  we  may  trust  his  own  assurance,  the  most  virtuous  in 
intention.  His  tales  are  divided  into  five  parts,  each  of 
the  first  three  of  which  has  what  the  writer  considers  to 
be  a  distinct  moral  purpose.  In  the  first,  in  Dunlop's 
words,  "  the  scope  of  the  stories  is  to  show  that  God  will 
sooner  or  later  inflict  vengeance  on  dissolute  monks." 
The  second  "  proves  that  the  monks  of  those  days  in- 
vented many  frauds."  The  third  **  is  intended  to  show 
that  the  greatest  and  finest  ladies  of  Italy  indulged  in 
gallantries  of  a  nature  which  did  tliem  very  little  honour." 
All  these  propositions  might  have  been  thought  suscep- 
tible of  demonstration  without  the  Novcllino^  and  much 
better   established   than    Massuccio's   claim   to   a   place 


MASSUCCIO 


217 


among  moralists   or  reformers.      He   protests  that  his 
tales  are  ''  ower  true,"  and  for  the  most  part  founded  on 
recent  transactions;    and,  in  fact,  he  appears   less   in- 
debted than  any  predecessor  to  folk-lore  and  the  French 
fabliaux.     The  last  two  sections  of  his  work,  however, 
contain  love  adventures  of  too  exceptional  a  nature  to 
be  founded  upon  actual  incidents.     Some  of  these  mani- 
fest, not  merely  ingenuity  of  invention,  but  considerable 
tragic  power.     The  style  is  somewhat  barbarous;  and  the 
same  remark  applies  to  the  lighter  Iktion,  generally  of 
the  nature  of  anecdote,  of  his  contemporary  Sabadino 
degli  Arienti,  a  native  and  historian  of  Bologna.     Saba- 
dino's  tales  are  much  less  objectionable  than  Massuccio's, 
though  no  less  than  his  in  the  author's  opinion  moralis- 
simi  documcnti.     They  are  entitled  Porrettane,  ixom  their 
having  been  composed  for  the  amusement  of  the  visitors 
to  the  baths  of  Porretta,  which  gives  them  some  import- 
ance as  an  index  to  the  taste  of  the  more  opulent  and 
leisured  classes  of  society. 

The  novels  of  the  following  century  are  exceedingly 
numerous,  but  in  general  too  much  upon  one  pattern 
to  deserve  especial  notice  until  we  arrive  at  those  of 
Bandello,  Cinthio,  and  Grazzini,  each  of  whom  is  eminent 
for  some  special  characteristic.  Of  Firenzuola,  one  of 
the  most  typical  writers  of  his  day,  we  have  already 
spoken,  his  novelettes  being  generally  interwoven  with 
his  other  prose  works.  Two  single  novelettes  by  separate 
authors  deserve  special  notice  as  world-famous,  though 
not  by  the  genius  of  their  authors.  The  Romeo  a7id 
Giulictta  of  Luigi  da  Porto,  a  gentleman  of  Vicenza  who 
died  in  1529,  is  a  powerful  and  well-told  story,  although 
it  would  have  been  little  heard  of  but  for  Shakespeare, 
who  nevertheless  seems  to  have  been  unacquainted  with 


2l8 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE 


it,  having  founded  his  tragedy  upon  the  inferior  version 
made  by  Arthur  Brooke  after  the  French  of  Boistuau. 
The  other  story  which  has  become  a  portion  of  the 
world's  repertory  of  fiction  is  the  Belphegor  of  Giovanni 
Brevio,  a  subject  also  treated  by  MachiavelH,  and  revived 
in  our  own  day  by  Thackeray.  The  idea  of  the  devil's 
aversion  to  matrimony,  not  as  a  divine  ordinance,  but  as 
a  nuisance  inconsistent  with  his  own  peace  and  comfort, 
is  so  irresistibly  comic  that  one  is  surprised  to  find  it 
originally  Slavonian. 

The  celebrity  of  Pietro  Aretino  requires  the  mention 
of  his  novels,  which,  however,  possess  no  very  distinctive 
features.  To  find  these  we  must  turn  chiefly  to  Strapa- 
rola,  whose  genre  requires  a  distinct  notice;  and,  among 
those  who  diverged  less  from  the  beaten  track,  Ban- 
dello,  Cinthio,  and  Grazzini.  Bandello,  says  Settembrini, 
depicts  the  Italian,  Grazzini  the  Florentine,  Cinthio 
humanity  at  large. 

Matteo  Bandello  (1480-1561)  was  a  Lombard  and 
a  Dominican,  who  resided  successively  at  Mantua  and 
at  Milan,  the  latter  city  in  his  time  one  of  the  most 
uncomfortable  places  in  Italy  from  the  oppressions  and 
depredations  of  the  Spanish  soldiery.  Popular  commo- 
tions concurred  to  drive  him  to  France,  where  Henry  II. 
made  him  Bishop  of  Agen.  His  novelettes  had  been 
composed  before  this  distinction  befell  him,  but  his 
episcopacy  was  no  obstacle  to  their  publication  in  1554. 
Though  frequently  licentious,  his  stories  indicate  a  con- 
siderable advance  upon  his  forerunners  in  the  power  of 
depicting  cliaracter  and  in  seriousness  of  tone.  He 
prefers  historical  narration  to  invention,  and  usually 
bases  his  tales  upon  some  actual  occurrence,  often  revolt- 
ing for  its  cruelty  or  indecency.     The  story  of   Violante^ 


BANDELLO:  GRAZZINI:  CINTHIO  219 

analysed  in  No.  380  of  the  Edinburgh  Review,  is  a  good 
example  of  his  tragic  force,  and  many  others  might  be 
given.  The  pathetic  grace  of  the  opening  of  his  Gerardo 
and  Elena,  analysed  in  the  same  essay,  is  no  less  excel- 
lent in  its  more  romantic  and  delicate  way.  He  was 
a  prolific  writer,  producing  no  fewer  than  eighty-nine 
novelettes,  more  esteemed  by  foreigners  than  by  his  own 
countrymen,  who  were  offended  by  his  Lombardisms. 
Settembrini,  however,  not  in  general  favourable  to  the 
productions  of  the  Cinque  Cento,  pronounces  him  the 
first  Italian  novelist  after  Boccaccio. 

No  imputation  of  rusticity  can  be  attached  to  the  dic- 
tion of  Antonio  Maria  Grazzini,  surnamed  //  Lasca 
(1503-83),  for  here  the  style  is  the  main  recommenda- 
tion of  the  work.     Grazzini,  an  apothecary  by  profession, 
w^as  one  of  the  chief  promoters  of  the  movement  for 
prescribing  a  standard  of  pure  Tuscan,  and  as  one  of 
the  founders  of   the   celebrated  Academy  degli  Umidi, 
each    of    whose    members   was    bound   to    assume   the 
name   of   some   fish,   he    called    himself    //  Lasca   (the 
Roach),  by  which  name  he   is  best  known.     Such  toys 
occupied  the  thoughts  of   Italians  in  an   age  of  decay 
when  great  deeds   had   become   impossible.     Grazzini's 
stories  are   mostly  taken   from    Florentine    private  life, 
and  as  such  have  their  value,  apart  from  the  idiomatic 
Tuscan,  which  is  best  apprehended  by  the  writer's  coun- 
trymen.    They  are  not  of  enthralling  interest,  and  when 
tragical  are  sometimes  revolting,  but  the  exposition  is 

easy  and  artistic. 

Giovanni  Battista  Giraldi  Cinthio  of  Ferrara 
(1504-73)  is  better  known  by  name  to  English  readers 
than  most  of  his  fellow  -  novelists,  since  from  him 
Shakespeare  derived   the  plots  of   Othello  and  Measure 


220 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE 


for  Measure,  The  story  on  which  the  former  drama  is 
founckd  is  not  a  bad  speciiiien  of  Cinthio's  usual  work. 
His  subjects  are  frequently  tragical,  sometimes  shock- 
ing, but  the  treatment  is  generally  powerful,  the  narra- 
tive direct  and  forcible,  and  he  is  in  great  measure  exempt 
from  the  grossness  of  his  contemporaries.  The  tales,  a 
hundred  in  number,  whence  their  title  of  Ecatouiithiy 
are  supposed  to  be  narrated  on  board  a  ship  bound  for 
Marseilles,  and  conveying  a  party  of  Romans  escaping 
from  the  sack  of  the  Eternal  City.  They  are  divided  like 
Boccaccio's  into  ten  classes,  each  considered  to  illustrate 
some  particular  point  of  morals  or  manners.  They  are 
highly  respectable  performances  ;  but  by  so  much  as 
they  surpass  Grazzini's  in  matter  they  fall  below  them  in 
style,  which,  though  not  incorrect,  is  devoid  of  colour 
and  individuality. 

Straparola,  already  briefly  alluded  to,  was  a  native 
of  Caravaggio,  and  published  his  Notti  Piacevoli  in  1554. 
He  is  a  good  story-teller,  although  a  bad  stylist  ;  but 
w^hat  gives  him  an  epoch-making  rank  among  Italian 
novelists  is  not  his  merit  or  demerit  in  either  capacity, 
but  his  having  been  the  first  to  avail  himself  of  popular 
folk-lore  as  a  groundwork  for  fiction.  Nothing  is  more 
iMinoying  than  the  almost  complete  neglect  of  popular 
mythology  by  men  of  culture  in  antiquity.  Apuleius 
tells  one  inimitable  tale,  without  saying  where  he  got  it. 
Svnesius  spends  his  evenings  listening  to  the  stories  of 
the  Libyan  peasants,  and  is  not  at  the  trouble  to  preserve 
a  single  one.  It  is  nevertheless  clear  that  such  tales 
must  have  been  as  rife  in  ancient  times  as  in  our  own. 
Straparola  was  perhaps  the  first  man  who  systematically 
turned  them  to  literary  account  :  it  would  have  been 
well  if  he  had  gone  much  further,  and  proportionately 


CHARACTERISTICS  OF  NOVELS  221 

reduced  his  debt  to  Hieronymo  Morlini,  the  chief  re- 
commendation of  whose  generally  indecent  and  always 
ungrammatical  Latin  stories  (Naples,  1520)  is  their  exceed- 
in  <^  rarity.  Nearly  a  hundred  years  afterwards  Straparola 
w:T.  completely  eclipsed  both  as  concerned  the  quantity 
and  the  quality  of  his  folk-lore  fictions,  by  the  Pentawe- 
rone  of  GIOVANNI  Basile,  Count  of  Morone,  a  collection 
whose  relation  to  the  popular  mythology  of  other  nations 
has  occasioned  endless  discussion.  Puss  in  Boots,  and 
Cinderella,  and  Rapunzel,  and  many  another  favourite 
owe  to  Basile  their  iirst  appearance  in  literary  costume. 
In  narrative  he  is  the  breathless,  loquacious,  exuberant 
Neapolitan,  too  much  in  a  hurry  to  trouble  himself 
about  style  or  art,  but  carrying  all  before  him  by  his 
vigour  and  vehemence,  and  betraying,  as  his  German 
translator  has  pointed  out,  strong  traces  of  the  influence 
of  Rabelais. 

It  will  be  evident  from  the  above  brief  sketch  of  the 
Italian  novel  that  in  the  sixteenth  century  the  art  of 
novel-writing  was  nearly  identical  with  the  art  of  narra- 
tive. This  was  fully  possessed  by  most  writers  of  fiction  ; 
but  characterisation,  ingenuity  of  construction  and  de- 
velopment of  plot,  underplot,  episode,  artful  suspension 
of  interest,  above  all  the  application  of  the  novelist's  art 
to  weighty  purposes,  were  all  in  the  most  rudimentary 
condition.  Compared  with  the  modern  novel,  the  ancient 
story  is  as  a  simple  air  upon  a  flute  to  the  complicated 
harmony  of  an  organ.  It  is  true  that  the  old  romances 
abound  with  hints  and  germs  only  needing  development, 
but  development  was  slow  in  coming,  and  even  when 
about  the  beginning  of  the  eighteenth  century  romance 
and  novelette  had  grown  into  the  novel,  it  was  still  long 
before  the  novel  became  a  vehicle  'of  ideas  and  a  potent 


'>'>'> 


ITALIAN   LITERATURE 


factor  in  civilisation.  The  reason  probably  is  that  while 
the  novel  may  employ  the  highest  human  faculties,  it  is 
at  the  same  time  the  best  medium  for  conveying  ideas  to 
the  less  cultivated  orders  of  societv.  The  extension  of 
reading  and  writing  to  these  classes  has  called  forth  a 
tribe  of  readers  which  had  no  existence  in  the  days  of 
the  Cinque  Cento,  and  has  invested  the  only  description 
of  literature  which  powerfully  appea's  to  them  witli 
extraordinary  significance.  The  influence  of  the  novel 
in  the  modern  sense  grows,  and  will  continue  to  grow ; 
but  there  is  still  abundant  room  for  the  short  and  sunple 
story,  the  consistent  development  of  a  single  incident  or 
situation,  compensating  in  art  for  what  it  lacks  in  variety, 
yet,  now  that  human  life  has  become  so  much  richer  and 
more  complex  than  of  old,  at  a  further  remove  from 
mere  anecdote  than  seemed  necessary  for  its  Italian 
prototype. 


CHAPTER    XVII 


THE  DRAMA 


Alone  among  the  great  nations  of  the  modern  world, 
Italy  stands  in  the  unenviable  position  of  possessing  no 
drama  at  the  same  time  national  and  literary.  From 
one  point  of  view  three  classes  of  the  drama  may  be 
distinguished,  (i)  The  rude  popular  play  entirely  a 
creation  of  the  people,  such  as  the  buffooneries  of  the 
Dionysiac  festival,  out  of  which  the  Athenian  drama 
grew,  or  the  dramatic  exhibitions  at  fairs  of  itinerant 
actors  barely  distinguishable  from  mountebanks,  like  those 
whose  puppet-plays  originated  Faust,  Performances  of 
this  nature  have  probably  existed  in  every  nation  en- 
dowed with  the  rudiments  of  culture.  (2)  These  crude 
beginnings  elevated  by  men  of  genius  into  the  sphere  of 
art,  and  become  literary  without  ceasing  to  be  popular. 
This  is  the  true  national  drama,  w^hen  the  pulses  of  the 
poet  and  the  people  beat  in  full  unison,  and  of-  w^hich 
Greece,  England,  and  Spain  have  given  the  world  the 
most  brilliant  examples.  (3)  The  artificial  drama,  written 
by  men  of  cuUure  for  men  of  culture,  but  neglecting,  or 
at  least  failing  to  reach  the  heart  of  the  people.  With  the 
exception  of  the  musical  drama  of  which  Metastasio  aftords 
the  type,  and  of  the  comedies  of  Goldoni  and  Gozzi,  all  of 
which  belonged  to  a  more  recent  period  than  that  with 
wiiich  we  are  now  engaged,  the  whole  of  the  Italian  drama 


2iJ3 


M 


<y  o 


24 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE 


II 


possessini^  any  literary  pretensions  belongs  to  this  class. 
It  is  true  tliat,  as  in  England  and  elsewhere,  it  is  accom- 
panied by  a  lower  order  of  dramatic  composition  which 
miy  be  rei^arded  a-^  p(^piilar.  In  the  e  niv  diys  of  the 
Italian  drama  we  have  the  Kappresenta::ioiii^  at  a  later 
period  the  Coninicdia  dell'  Artt\  of  both  of  which  some 
notice  must  be  taken.  But  neither  is,  strictly  speaking, 
literature. 

It  appears  at  tirst  exceedingly  surprising  that  a  nation, 
not  only  s^)  gifted  as  the  Italian,  but  so  dramatically 
gifted,  should  not  merely  never  have  achieved  a  national 
drama,  but  should  have  no  dramatic  writer  meriting  to 
be  ranked  among  the  chief  masters  of  the  art.  Lively, 
emotional,  capable  of  being  worked  up  to  tlie  most 
violent  degrees  of  pas- ion  ;  at  the  same  time  observant, 
sagacious,  reflective  ;  members  of  a  .society  comprising 
every  variety  of  character  and  profession,  and  inheritors 
of  a  history  replete  with  moving  and  tragic  incidents, 
Italians  should  seem  to  have  wanted  no  requisite  for 
the  creation  of  a  flourishing  stage.  Prolific  they  were 
indeed  :  more  than  live  thousand  plays  were  written 
between  1500  and  1734.  IVrhaps  there  are  not  Ave 
which  enjoy  any  considerablj  reputation  out  of  Italy, 
or  which,  whatever  their  literary  merit,  can  be  con- 
sidered characteristically  Italian.  The  most  potent  of 
probable  causes  will  be  adduced  in  its  place,  but  no 
single  explanation,  or  any  accumulation  of  partially 
satisfactory  explanations,  will  entirely  account  for  so 
remarkable  a  circumstance.  One  reason  was  probably 
the  great  development  of  Italian  culture  at  an  early 
period,  compared  with  that  of  other  European  nations. 
The  ablest  men  had  become  fully  acquainted  wath 
Seneca  and  Terence,  and  looked  upon  them  as  painters 


\ 


\ 


CHARACTERISTICS  OF  ITALIAN  DRAMA     225 

looked  upon  Raphael,  or  sculptors  upon  Phidias.  They 
deemed  them  the  norm  of  excellence,  and  condemned 
themselves  to  a  sterile  imitation,  which  might  and 
often  did  possess  high  literary  merit,  l>ut  which  was 
entirely  estranged  from  popular  sympathies.  Men  like 
Politian  and  Pontano,  who  really  could  have  created 
a  national  drama  if  they  could  have  trusted  their  own 
instincts,  were  deterred  from  producing  anything  at 
variance  with  the  canons  in  which  they  themselves 
believed.  It  must  be  said  in  extenuation  of  their  error, 
that  the  classical  school,  with  all  its  defects,  was  vastly 
in  advance  of  the  rude,  amorphous  beginnings  of  the 
romantic  drama  in  every  country  but  one.  One  little 
corner  of  Europe  alone  possessed  in  the  early  sixteenth 
century  a  drama  at  once  living,  indigenous,  and  admir- 
able as  literature.  Nothing  in  literary  history  is  more 
surprising  than  the  gap  between  Gil  Vicente  and  his 
contemporaries,  whether  classical  or  romantic.  Had 
he  been  born  an  Italian  instead  of  a  Portuguese,  the 
history  of  the  Italian  stage  might  possibly  have  been 
different.  It  nevertheless  remains  to  be  explained  why 
no  such  person  arose  among  so  gifted  a  people,  and 
why  throughout  their  entire  history,  with  one  or  two 
marked  exceptions  in  particular  departments,  Italians 
have  never  had  a  drama  that  they  could  justly  call 
their  own. 

In  its  first  beginnings,  notwithstanding,  the  Italian 
drama  was  as  national  as  any  other.  As  with  all  other 
modern  European  dramas,  its  origin  was  religious.  Chris- 
tianity found  the  need  of  replacing  the  heathen  shows  and 
spectacles  it  had  suppressed,  and  amused  the  people  with 
representations  of  Scriptural  subjects,  or  of  incidents  in 
the  lives  of  the  saints.     Eor  centuries  these  were  never 


226 


ITALIAN   LITERATURE 


written    down,    but    improvised    or   exhibited    in    dumb 
show.     Gradually  the    miracle-play  came  into  being,  a 
more    advanced    development,    compelling    learning    by 
rote   and  much   drilling    of   the   performers,   and  there- 
fore of   necessity   committed  to   writing.      In    Italy   this 
assumed    a    more    polished    form    than    elsewhere,    the 
Raptrcscntazionc  Sacra,  rude  in   construction,  but  com- 
posed frequently  in  elegant,  sometimes  in  excellent  octave 
verse.      This  was  a  development   of  the  fifteenth   cen- 
tury, the  earliest  of  which  the  date  is  known  being  the 
Abraham   and  Isaac  of   Feo    Belcari,   1449.     It    became 
exceedingly   popular  in  the   later    part    of   the  century, 
especially  at  Florence.     No  less  distinguished  a  person 
than    Lorenzo    de'    Medici    is    enumerated    among    its 
authors.     Numbers  of  such  pieces  were  printed,  down 
even  to  the  end  of  the  seventeenth  century,  and  usually 
set  off   with   wood-engravings,  sometimes   of   great  ele- 
gance.    The  materials  were  usually  drawn  from  ecclesi- 
astical legend.     Constantine  is  represented  as  giving  his 
daughter  to  his  successful  general   Gallicanus,  on   con- 
dition of  his  becoming  a  Christi:m.      Julian,   marching 
to    wage    war   with    the    Persians,    is    slain    by    an    in- 
visible saint.      The  histories  of  Tobit,  of  St.  Agnes,  of 
St.  CeciUa,   and  numbers  of  similar  legends,   form  the 
staple    subjects.       Sometimes    romance    is    laid    under 
contribution,  as  in  the  instance  of  the   Emperor  Octa- 
vian,   but   always    with    a    religious    motive.      Dramatic 
force  does  not  seem   to    have   been   much    considered, 
the   stately   octave   being   better   adapted   for  declama- 
tion than   for   dialogue  ;    but   the   stage   directions   are 
very  precise,  and  every  effort  seems  to  have  been  made 
to  impress  the   spectators,  so  far  as   permitted  by  the 
rudeness  of  the  open-air  theatre,  a  mere  scaffold  with 


POLITIAN'S  ORFEO 


227 


I 


perhaps  a  curtain  for  a  background,  yet  often  very 
splendidly  decorated. 

How  near  Italy  came  to  creating  a  national  drama  is 
shown  by  the  frequent  representations  of  public  events 
upon  the  stage,  quite  in  the  spirit  of  Shakespeare's 
historical  plays.  Two  types  may  be  discriminated — one 
adhering  very  closely  to  that  of  the  Rapprcsentazioniy  and 
composed  in  the  vernacular;  the  latter  following  classical 
models,  and  in  Latin.  To  the  latter  belongs  the  very 
tedious  play  of  Carlo  Verardi  on  the  fall  of  Granada, 
performed  before  Cardinal  Riario  in  1492  ;  but  the  very 
remarkable  and  unfortunately  lost  dramatic  chronicle  of 
the  usurpations  and  downfall  of  the  house  of  Borgia, 
acted  before  the  Duke  of  Urbino  on  the  recovery  of  his 
states  in  1504,  seems  rather  to  have  belonged  to  the 
former  class.  To  this  type  also  is  allied  the  first  Italian 
drama  of  genuine  literary  merit,  the  Orfco  of  Politian, 
where  the  dialogue  is  mostly  in  octave  stanzas,  as  in  the 
Rappresentazioni,  and  the  object  is  evidently  rather  to 
delight  the  spectators  by  a  rapid  succession  of  scenes 
admitting  of  musical  accompaniment  than  to  "purge  the 
soul  by  pity  and  terror."  Slight  as  this  juvenile  work  of 
Politian's  is,  it  is  the  work  of  a  poet,  and  written  with 
a  swing  and  rush  which  recall  the  lyrical  parts  of  the 
Bacchcc  of  Euripides.  It  indicates  what  the  Rappresenta- 
zioni  might  have  become  but  for  the  competition  of  the 
more  classical  type  of  drama,  and  seems  a  prelude  to 
the  thoroughly  national  species  of  composition  which 
arose  in  the  seventeenth  and  prevailed  in  the  eighteenth 
century,  the  opera. 

The  Italian  stage  had  thus  made  a  respectable  begin- 
ninjl  with  the  drama  a  hundred  years  before  any  drama 
worthy  of   the  name  existed  in   England.      The  disap- 


228 


ITALIAN   LITERATURE 


•pointment  of  such  auspicious  promise  is  justly  ascribed 
by  Synionds,  in  :4re:it  measure,  to  the  want  of  a  repre- 
sentative pubHc  and  a  centre  of  soci:il  hfe.  Tlie  emula- 
tion of  a  number  of  independent  cities,  so  favourable 
to  the  development  of  art,  prevented  the  development 
of  the  national  feeling  essentiiil  to  a  national  drama. 
The  political  circumstances  of  these  communities,  more- 
over, were  inimical  to  the  existence  of  a  popular  stage. 
Theatrical  representations  remained  the  amusement  of 
courts ;  and  w^hen  the  general  public  was  allowed  to 
participate  in  them,  the  play  itself  was  so  enveloped  in 
show  and  spectacle  as  to  appear  the  least  part  of  the 
entertainment.  It  was  not  possible  that  under  such 
circumstances  the  drama  could  deviate  far  from  con- 
ventional models.  Tragedy  continued  to  be  composed 
after  the  pattern  of  Seneca,  an  imitation  of  an  imitation. 
Comedy,  though  also  in  bondage  to  classical  precedents, 
could  not  avoid  depicting  contemporary  manners,  and 
hence  displays  far  more  vitality  and  vigour. 

Latin  plays  had  been  written  by  Italians  from  the 
beginning  of  the  fifteenth  century,  and  had  included 
comedies,  now  lost,  by  persons  of  no  less  account  than 
Petrarch  and  ^neas  Sylvius.  The  first  vernacular  tra- 
gedies worthy  of  the  name  were  composed  for  the  enter- 
tainment of  the  court  of  Ferrara,  and  were  WTitten  in  the 
octave  stanza  or  terza  rinia.  No  genius  could  have 
adapted  this  form  to  the  exigencies  of  the  stage,  and  a 
great  step  was  taken  when  in  1515  Trissino,  whose  epic 
on  the  Gothic  w^ars  has  been  previously  noticed,  wrote  his 
tragedy  of  Sophonisba  in  blank  verse,  retaining  nothing 
of  the  lyrical  element  but  the  chorus.  The  piece  marks 
an  era,  and  as  such  remains  celebrated,  notwithstanding 
its  total  want  cf  poetry  and  passion.      It  would  have 


TRAGEDY 


229 


been  a  good  outline  for  an  abler  hand  to  have  clothed 
with  substance.  Trissino  had  abundance  of  successors 
and  imitators,  most  of  w^hom  had  more  poetical  endow- 
ment, but  few  more  genuine  vocation,  and  all  of  whom 
are  devoid  of  any  impulse  except  the  ambition  of  literary 
distinction.  This  could  only  be  reached  by  the  pre- 
scribed path  ;  and  no  vestige  of  originality  appears  in  any 
of  them  except  Sperone  Speroni's  innovation,  not  laud- 
able in  a  tragedy,  although  a  fruitful  suggestion  for  the 
pastoral  drama,  of  mingling  lyrical  metres  with  the  regu- 
lation blank  verse.  The  subject  of  his  play,  the  incest 
of  Macareus  and  Canace,  infinitely  overtaxed  his  elegant 
talent.  Of  the  other  tragedies  of  the  time,  the  best 
known  are  the  Rosmuuda  of  Rucellai,  the  Mariarnne  of 
Lodovico  Dolce,  and  the  OrbeccJie  of  Cinthio  the  novelist, 
w^hose  Epitia  contains  the  rude  germ  of  Shakespeare's 
Measure  for  Measure}  At  a  later  date  tragedy  w^as  at- 
tempted by  a  true  poet  of  great  genius,  who  would 
assuredly  have  produced  something  memorable  under 
favourable  circumstances.  But  the  composition  of 
Tasso's  TorrismondOy  commenced  in  his  youth,  was 
long  interrupted,  and  the  play  was  completed  in  1586 
under  the  depressing  circumstances  of  his  Mantuan  exile. 
It  thus  wants  energy;  and,  as  Carducci  remarks,  Tasso  is 
too  much  of  an  eclectic,  striving  by  a  combination  of  the 
advantages  of  all  styles  to  supply  the  one  indispensable 
gift  of  poetical  inspiration,  which  misfortune  had  all  but 
extinguished. 

^  The  novel  by  Cinthio  liimself  on  which  this  play  is  founded  was  drama- 
tised by  Whetstone  ;  but  that  Shakespeare  had  seen  Cinthio's  dramatic  version 
also  may  be  inferred  from  a  minute  circumstance.  Cinthio's  play,  not  his 
novel  or  Whetstone's  adaptation  of  it,  has  a  character  named  Angela,  whose 
namedisai)pears  from  Measure  for  Measure^  but  who  bequeaths  Angelo  as  that 
of  her  brother,  whom  Cinthio  calls  Jurjsti,  and  Whetstone  Andrugio. 
16 


230 


ITALIAN   LITERATURE 


COMEDY 


231 


The  first  Italian  comedies,  like  the  tragedies,  were 
written  in  rhyme.  One  early  example  is  entitled  to 
notice,  both  on  account  of  the  subject  and  as  the  work 
of  an  excellent  poet,  the  Timone  of  Boiardo.  It  is  little 
more  than  a  translation  of  Lucian's  Dialogue,  yet  was, 
we  feel  confident,  the  channel  through  which  Shake- 
speare gained  the  acquaintance  with  that  work  revealed 
in  his  Tivion  of  Athens.  The  history  of  Italian  comedy 
as  a  recognised  form  of  art  should,  however,  be  dated 
from  the  Calandra  of  Cardinal  Bibbiena,  first  performed 
about  1508.  It  hardly  attempts  delineation  of  character, 
but,  as  Symonds  remarks,  "achieved  immediate  success 
by  reproducing  both  the  humour  of  Boccaccio  and  the 
invention  of  Plautus  in  the  w^ittiest  vernacular."  The 
plot  is  taken  from  the  MetKechmi  of  Plautus,  the  source 
of  Shakespeare's  Comedy  of  Errors ;  but  Bibbiena's  idea 
of  making  the  indistinguishable  twins  brother  and  sister 
enhances  the  comic  effect  at  the  expense  of  morality, 
little  considered  by  cardinals  in  those  days. 

The  great  success  of  Bibbiena's  comedy  was  calculated 
to  encourage  rivalry,  and  it  chanced  that  two  of  the  first 
men  in  Italy  of  the  day  possessed  the  dramatic  instinct, 
combined  with  a  decided  gift  for  satire.  In  the  year  fol- 
lowing the  exhibition  of  the  Calandra  (1509),  Ariosto  gave 
the  Cassaria,  a  comedy  of  intrigue  on  the  Plautine  model. 
The  same  description  is  applicable  to  his  other  comedies, 
the  Suppositiy  the  Lena^  the  Negromante,  and  the  Scolas- 
tica.  In  all  except  the  Negromante  the  action  turns  upon 
the  stratagems  of  a  knavish  servant  to  obtain  for  his 
master  the  money  indispensable  for  the  gratification  of 
his  amorous  desires.  This  style  of  comedy  requires  a 
well-contrived  plot,  and  the  maintenance  of  the  interest 
throughout  by  a  series  of  ingenious  surprises  and  un- 


foreseen incidents.  In  these  Ariosto  fully  attains  his 
object.  Writing  for  the  amusement  of  a  court,  he  does 
not  care  to  stray  from  the  conventions  which  he  knows 
will  satisfy,  and  his  pieces  afford  no  measure  of  the 
success  he  might  have  attained  if  he  had  appealed  to 
the  public  and  essayed  to  depict  Italian  society  as  it 
existed.  One  of  the  characters  is  exceedingly  lifelike, 
the  accommodating  Dominican  in  the  Scolasdca^  who, 
armed  with  all  imaginable  faculties  from  the  Pope,  is 
ready  to  commute  the  fulfilment  of  an  inconvenient  vow 
into  the  performance  of  some  good  work  profitable  to 
his  order.  This  play  was  left  unfinished,  but  was  written 
before  the  Lena  and  the  Negromante,  which  probably 
appeared  about  1528. 

The  other  Italian  comic  writer  of  genius  w^as  one  of 
more  powerful  intellect  and  more  serious  character  than 
Ariosto,  if  less  richly  endowed  as  a  poet.  Released  from 
prison  after  the  overthrow  of  his  party  and  the  loss  of 
his  political  position  in  151 2,  Machiavelli  found  solace  in 
the  composition  of  the  Mandragola  {Mandrake)^  a  piece 
acted  before  the  Pope  in  that  day,  and  which  could 
hardly  be  represented  anywhere  in  this.  Its  cynicism  is 
worse  than  its  immorality,  the  plot  consisting  in  the 
stratagem  by  which  an  innocent  young  wife  is  per- 
suaded to  admit  a  lover;  all  the  personages,  including 
the  husband,  who  is  nevertheless  himself  deceived  in  a 
material  point,  co-operating  for  so  laudable  an  end. 
Disagreeable  as  the  situation  is,  it  is  probably  founded 
upon  fact ;  and  at  all  events  the  play  is  no  pale  copy  of 
Plautus  or  Terence,  but  full  of  consistent  and  strongly 
individualised  characters,  and  scenes  of  the  most  drastic- 
ally comic  effect.  The  portrait  of  the  rascally  father 
confessor  is  particularly  vigorous,  and  proves  of  itself 


I 


232 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE 


how  ripe  the  times  were  for  Luther.  A  dozen  more 
plavs  of  equal  merit  would  have  raised  the  Italian  sta^^e 
very  hij^li.  But  no  successor  to  Machiavelli  appeared ; 
and  his  other  play,  the  CHzia,  is  deficient  in  orii^inality, 
being  little  more  than  a  paraphrase  of  the  Casina  of 
Plautus. 

Many  comedies  of  considerable  merit  succeeded 
Machiavelli's,  among  which  may  be  particularly  men- 
tioned those  of  Firenzuola,  who  followed  Roman  prece- 
dents, and  of  Cecchi,  and  Gelli,  and  Grazzini,  who  to  a 
considerable  extent  disengaged  themselves  from  tradi- 
tion. Angelo  Beolco,  called  //  Rnzzantc,  struck  upon  a 
new  vein  in  the  delineation  of  rustic  life,  involving  the 
employment  of  dialect;  and,  near  the  end  of  the  cen- 
tury, the  life  of  the  people  was  represented  with  extreme 
vividness  by  Buonarotti,  nephew  of  Michael  Angelo,  in 
his  Ficra  and  Tancia.  One  other  comic  dramatist  takes 
an  important  place,  the  repulsive  and  decried  Aretino. 
His  claim  to  permanent  signiticance  is  grounded,  not 
on  the  scanty  literary  merits  of  his  works,  but  on 
the  unique  cliaracteristic  thus  expressed  by  Symonds, 
''They  depict  the  great  world  from  the  standpoint  of  the 
servants'  hall."  They  are  the  work  of  a  low-minded 
man,  who  could  see  nothing  but  the  baser  traits  of  the 
society  around  him,  but  saw  tlie^e  clearly,  and  also  saw 
no  reason  why  he  should  not  blazon  what  he  saw. 
Hence  his  usefulness  is  in  the  ratio  of  his  ofTensiveness. 

It  is  significant  of  the  ditYerence  between  the  Italian 
mind  and  the  Spanish,  and  of  the  extent  to  which  the 
fc^rmer  had  emancipated  itself  from  mediaevalism,  that 
the  Rapprescniazio7ic,  touching  so  nearly  on  the  confines 
of  the  Spanish  Auto^  never  developed  into  that  or  any 
allied  varietv  of  the  drama.    The  abstractions  of  the  vices 


PASTORAL  DRAMA 


233 


and  virtues,  so  natural  to  the  Spaniard  and  the  man  of 
the  Middle  Age  in  general,  were  uncongenial  to  the 
Italian,  whose  Rapprcscntazioni  were  always  peopled  by 
definite,  tangible  persons,  even  if  of  the  spiritual  order. 
The  Adamo  of  Andreini,  early  in  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury, from  which  Milton  undoubtedly  derived  his  first 
idea  of  treating  the  Fall  in  a  miracle  play,  might  have 
led  to  a  development  in  this  direction,  but  remained  an 
isolated  eccentricity.  The  true  national  development  lay 
in  quite  another  path,  the  pastoral  drama.  Something 
like  this  might  be  found  in  Gil  Vicente,  but  we  may  be 
certain  that  his  works  were  totally  unknown  in  Italy,  and 
that  the  pastoral  play  grew  out  of  such  romances  as  the 
Arcadia,  such  eclogues  as  those  of  Baptista  Mantuanus, 
and  the  court  masques  in  which  the  principal  parts  were 
taken  by  shepherds  and  shepherdesses.  Politian's  Orfco 
is  net  very  far  from  being  such  a  piece,  although  it  is  a 
good  deal  more.  A  pastoral  masque  was  composed  as 
early  as  1506  by  Castiglione  for  the  amusement  of  the 
court  of  Urbino.  Others  followed  from  time  to  time, 
and  developed  into  a  real  pastoral  drama  by  Beccari  in 
1554 ;  but  the  literary  pretensions  of  this  class  of  compo- 
sition continued  to  be  very  slender  until  it  was  virtually 
created  by  Tasso's  Aminta  in  1573.  Few  novel  experi- 
ments in  literature  have  enjoyed  a  more  immediate 
or  more  permanent  success.  Numerous  as  w^ere  the 
^^//////A/'^  imitators,  its  primacy  has  never  but  once  been 
seriously  challenged,  and  its  nature  and  simplicity  have 
in  general  been  justly  preferred  to  the  more  elaborate 
artifice  of  the  Pastor  Fido,  It  is  indeed  deficient  in  the 
rich  poetry  of  its  English  rival,  the  Faithful  Shepherdess^ 
'' as  inferior,  poetically  speaking,"  says  Leigh  Hunt,  "as 
a  lawn  with  a  few  trees  on  it  is  to  the  depths  of  a  forest." 


232 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE 


how  ripe  the  times  were  for  Luther.  A  dozen  more 
plavs  of  equal  merit  would  have  raised  the  Italian  staj^e 
very  hii^h.  But  no  successor  to  Machiavelli  appeared; 
and  his  other  play,  the  Clizia,  is  deiicient  in  originality, 
being  little  more  than  a  paraphrase  of  the  Casina  of 
Plautus. 

Many  comedies  of  considerable  merit  succeeded 
Machiavelli's,  among  which  may  be  particularly  men- 
tioned those  of  Firenzuola,  who  followed  Roman  prece- 
dents, and  of  Cecchi,  and  GelH,  and  Grazzini,  who  to  a 
considerable  extent  disengaged  themselves  from  tradi- 
tion. Angelo  Beolco,  called  //  Ruzzantc,  struck  upon  a 
new  vein  in  the  delineation  of  rustic  life,  involving  the 
employment  of  dialect;  and,  near  the  end  of  the  cen- 
tury, the  life  of  the  people  was  represented  with  extreme 
vividness  by  Buonarotti,  nephew  of  Michael  Angelo,  in 
his  Ficra  and  Tancia.  One  other  comic  dramatist  takes 
an  important  place,  the  repulsive  and  decried  Aretino. 
His  claim  to  permanent  significance  is  grounded,  not 
on  the  scanty  literary  merits  of  his  works,  but  on 
the  unique  characteristic  thus  expressed  by  Symonds, 
''They  depict  the  great  world  from  the  standpoint  of  the 
servants'  hall/'  They  are  the  work  of  a  low-minded 
man,  who  could  see  nothing  but  the  baser  traits  of  the 
society  around  him,  but  saw  these  clearly,  and  also  saw 
no  reason  why  he  should  not  blazon  what  he  saw. 
Hence  his  usefulness  is  in  the  ratio  of  his  offensiveness. 

It  is  sianilicant  of  the  dii^erence  between  the  Italian 
mind  and  the  Spanish,  and  of  the  extent  to  which  the 
former  had  emancipated  itself  from  mediaevalism,  that 
the  RapprescuiazionCy  touching  so  nearly  on  the  conhnes 
of  the  Spanish  Auto,  never  developed  into  that  or  any 
allied  varietv  of  the  drama.    The  abstractions  of  the  vices 


PASTORAL  DRAMA 


233 


and  virtues,  so  natural  to  the  Spaniard  and  the  man  of 
the  Middle  Age  in  general,  were  uncongenial  to  the 
Italian,  whose  Rapprcscntazioni  were  always  peopled  by 
definite,  tangible  persons,  even  if  of  the  spiritual  order. 
The  Adamo  of  Andreini,  early  in  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury, from  which  Milton  undoubtedly  derived  his  first 
idea  of  treating  the  Fall  in  a  miracle  play,  might  have 
led  to  a  development  in  this  direction,  but  remained  an 
isolated  eccentricity.  The  true  national  development  lay 
in  quite  another  path,  the  pastoral  drama.  Something 
like  this  might  be  found  in  Gil  Vicente,  but  we  may  be 
certain  that  his  works  were  totally  unknown  in  Italy,  and 
that  the  pastoral  play  grew  out  of  such  romances  as  the 
Arcadia,  such  eclogues  as  those  of  Baptista  Mantuanus, 
and  the  court  masques  in  which  the  principal  parts  were 
taken  by  shepherds  and  shepherdesses.  Politian's  Oi-fco 
is  net  very  far  from  being  such  a  piece,  although  it  is  a 
good  deal  more.  A  pastoral  masque  was  composed  as 
early  as  1506  by  Castiglione  for  the  amusement  of  the 
court  of  Urbino.  Others  followed  from  time  to  time, 
and  developed  into  a  real  pastoral  drama  by  Beccari  in 
1554 ;  but  the  literary  pretensions  of  this  class  of  compo- 
sition continued  to  be  very  slender  until  it  was  virtually 
created  by  Tasso's  Aminta  in  1573.  P>w  novel  experi- 
ments in  literature  have  enjoyed  a  more  immediate 
or  more  permanent  success.  Numerous  as  were  the 
Aiiiintds  imitators,  its  primacy  has  never  but  once  been 
seriously  challenged,  and  its  nature  and  simplicity  have 
in  general  been  justly  preferred  to  the  more  elaborate 
artihce  of  the  Pastor  Fide.  It  is  indeed  deficient  in  the 
rich  poetry  of  its  English  rival,  the  Faithful  Shepherdess^ 
"as  inferior,  poetically  speaking,"  says  Leigh  Hunt, ''as 
a  lawn  with  a  few  trees  on  it  is  to  the  depths  of  a  forest." 


234 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE 


But  Leigh  Hunt  confesses  its  superiority  in  "true  dra- 
matic  skill,  and  flesh  and  blood  interest "  I  it  is  indeed  as 
far  as  anything  can  be  from  the  insipidity  usually  asso- 
ciated with  pastoral  compositions.  It  has,  moreover, 
more  of  the  genuine  yearning  for  the  golden  age,  the 
spirit  which  inspires  Kcats's  Endymion,  than  is  found 
in  the  fanciful  dramas  of  Fletcher,  or  Milton,  or  Ben 
Jonson.  "The  central  motive  of  Aminta  and  the 
Pastor  Fido;'  says  Symonds,  "  is  the  contrast  between 
the  actual  world  of  ambition,  treachery,  and  sordid 
strife,    and    the    ideal    world    of    pleasure,    loyalty,    and 

tranquil  ease." 

Although  the  pastoral  drama  is  a  legitimate  as  well  as 
a  beautiful  kind  of  composition,  it  is  not  capable  of  very 
<:reat  extension  or  variety.  Tasso's  successors  might 
conceivably  surpass  him  as  poets,  but  could  only  repeat 
him  as  dramatists.  His  only  serious  competitor  is  his 
contemporary  GiovAWi  Battista  Guakixi,  the  author 
of  the  Pastor  Fido  (1537-1612). 

Guarini,  the  descendant  of  a  Veronese  family  already 
distinguished  in  letters,  was,  like  Tasso,  attached  to  the 
court  of  the  Duke  of  Ferrara  ;  but,  unlike  Tasso,  was  a 
man  of  the  world,  and  was  employed  in  several  important 
missions,  especially  one  to  solicit  the  crown  of  Poland 
for  his  master,  where  he  nearly  died  of  a  Polish  inn. 
Like  most  of  the  Duke's  literary  proteges,  he  became 
estranged  from  him,  and  spent  tlie  later  part  of  his  life 
in  roaming  from  court  to  court  in  quest  of  employment, 
and  litigating  with  his  children  and  the  world  at  large. 
His  disposition  was  quarrelsome;  literary  disputes  had 
long  severed  him  from  Tasso  ;  it  is  to  his  honour  that 
when  the  latter  was  unable  to  watch  over  his  own  works, 
he  took  care  of  and  published  his  lyrical  poems.     The 


GUARINI 


23s 


most  brilliant  episode  of  Guarini's  life  was  the  publication 
of  his  Pastor  Fido  in  1590  ;  but  not  the  least  troublesome 
was  the  literary  controversy  in  which  it  involved  him. 
These  disputes,  born  rather  of  the  idleness  than  of  the 
conscientiousness  of  the  Italian  literati,  are  now  for- 
gotten, and  the  Pastor  Fido,  a  direct  challenge  to  the 
Aminta,  is  allowed  an  honourable  though  a  second  place. 
Its  relation  to  its  predecessor  may  be  compared  to  that 
of  the  Corinthian  order  to  the  Ionic.  Guarini  has  sought 
to  compensate  for  the  lack  of  natural,  spontaneous  in- 
spiration by  superior  artifice  of  plot :  his  characters  are 
more  numerous,  and  his  action  more  intricate  and  in- 
genious. This  would  not  have  availed  him  much  if  he 
had  not  been  a  poet,  but  this  he  certainly  was,  though 
with  less  of  the  nascitur -imA  more  of  the//  than  usual. 
Tasso  was  conscious  of  a  truer  inspiration,  and  conveys 
his  claim  to  the  virtual  invention  of  a  new  mode  in 
poetry  in  the  verses  which  he  has  placed  in  the  mouth 
of  Love  appearing  in  the  disguise  of  a  shepherd,  thus 
rendered  by  Leigh  Hunt : 

"  After  new  fashion  shall  these  woods  to-day 
Hear  love  discoursed;  and  it  shall  well  be  seen 
That  my  divinity  is  present  here 
In  its  own  person^  not  its  ministers. 
I  will  inbreathe  high  fancies  in  rude  hearts; 
I  will  refine,  and  retider  dulcet  sweet. 
Their  tongues;  because,  wherever  I  may  be. 
Whether  with  rustic  or  heroic  men. 
There  am  I  Love ;  and  inequality. 
As  it  may  please  7ne,  I  do  equalise  ; 
And  'tis  my  crowning  glory  and  great  miracle 
To  make  the  rustic  pipe  as  eloquent 
Even  as  t lie  subtlest  harp''' 

Guarini  frequently  repeated  Tasso's  ideas,  striving  to 


236 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE 


enhance  their  effect  by  careful  elaboration.  The  poetry 
of  one  or  both  has  passed  into  Calderon's  Magico  Pro- 
digiosan and  originated  the  scene  of  the  temptation  of 
Justina,  an  ornament  of  English  literature  in  the  incom- 
parable version  of  Shelley. 


CHAPTER  XVIII 


TASSO 


The  year  1564  is  memorable  in  the  intellectual  history 
of  the  world.  It  marks  the  beginning  of  the  long 
ascent  of  the  North,  and  of  the  slow  depression  of 
the  South.  In  it  Shakespeare  was  born  ;  in  it  Michael 
Angelo  died ;  in  it  the  decrees  of  the  Council  of 
Trent  were  promulgated  by  one  of  the  most  liberal 
and  enlightened  of  the  Popes,  even  as  the  Society  of 
Jesus  had  been  established  twenty-four  years  before  by 
another  entitled  to  the  same  commendation.  Neither 
Paul  nor  Pius  was  free  to  gratify  his  personal  in- 
clinations at  the  expense  of  the  institution  over  which 
he  presided  ;  and  in  fact  the  Society  and  the  Council 
were  less  important  in  themselves  than  as  indicative 
of  the  new^  spirit  w^hich  was  to  prevail  in  Roman 
Catholic  countries,  destructive,  so  far  as  its  influence 
extended,  of  science,  and  deadly  to  learning,  litera- 
ture, and  art.  The  time  was  at  hand  when  the  policy 
of  great  states  was  to  be  controlled  by  confessors ; 
when  the  clergy,  under  the  influence  of  a  training  in 
special  seminaries,  were  to  be  converted  from  an  order 
into  a  caste  ;  when  the  entire  influence  of  State  and 
Church  was  to  be  devoted  to  the  repression  of  free 
thought,  with  the  inevitable  result  of  intellectual  degene- 
racy,   and   mortifying  inferiority  to  the   nations  which, 


237 


238 


ITALIAN   LITERATURE 


with  whatever  hmitations,  acknowledged  the  priiuiplc  of 
freedom. 

From  this  period  Itahan  Hterature,  though  still  in- 
teresting in  itself,  becomes  comparatively  unimportant 
in  its  relation  to  general  civilisation  ;  it  drops  from  the 
first  place  into  the  third,  and  every  year  widens  the 
interval  between  the  retrogressive  and  the  progressive 
peoples.  The  results  of  eighty  years  of  oppression  are 
thus  stated  by  an  illustrious  visitor  on  the  authority 
of  the  Italians  themselves  :  **  I  have  sate  among  their 
learned  men,"  says  Milton,  ^'and  been  counted  happy 
to  be  born  in  such  a  place  of  philosophic  freedom  as 
they  supposed  England  was,  while  they  themselves  did 
nothing  but  bemoan  the  servile  condition  into  which 
learning  among  them  w\as  brought,  that  this  was  it  which 
had  damped  the  glory  of  Italian  wits  ;  that  nothing  had 
been  written  there  now  these  many  years  but  flattery  and 
fustian."  These,  it  will  be  observed,  are  not  Milton's  own 
words,  but  report  the  views  of  the  cultivated  Italians  with 
whom  he  associated,  and  who,  enslaved  but  not  sub- 
dued, still  nurtured  hopes  w^hich  our  times  have  seen 
fulfilled.  Could  the  foreigner  have  been  excluded,  could 
men  like  these  have  been  left  to  settle  by  themselves  with 
priest  and  prince,  it  is  probable  that  the  anti-Renaissance 
reaction  and  the  counter-Reformation  would  never  have 
come  to  pass.  Yet  Italy  cannot  be  wholly  excused  ;  the 
foreigner  had  brought  the  mischief,  but  who  had  brought 
the  foreigner  ? 

This  age  of  decadence  is  nevertheless  represented  to 
posterity  by  one  of  the  greatest  poets  of  Italy  ;  nor  c:ni 
his  misfortunes  be  specially  charged  upon  it.  The  sad 
story  of  TORQUATO  Tasso  has  ever  excited  and  ever  nuist 
excite  the  deepest  compassion  ;  but  it  is  not  now  believed 


TASSO'S   MENTAL  CONSTITUTION 


239 


that  any  fellow-mortal  was  responsible  for  his  sorrows, 
or  that  they  were  materially  aggravated  by  ill-usnge  from 
any  quarter.  The  simple  fact  is  that  during  the  later 
part  of  his  life  Tasso  was  frequently  either  insane  or  on 
the  borderland  between  sanity  and  insanity,  and  that, 
given  his  peculiar  mental  constitution,  his  double  portion 
of  the  morbid  irritability  and  sensitiveness  commonly 
incidental  to  the  poetical  temperament,  the  same  afflic- 
tion must  have  befallen  him  under  any  circumstances  or 
in  any  age  of  the  world.  It  is  indeed  possible  that  his 
brain  was  in  some  measure  clouded  and  warped  by  the 
unnatural  discipline  of  the  Jesuits  into  w^hose  hands  he 
fell  in  his  boyhood,  and  that  this  determined  the  nature 
of  some  of  the  symptoms  of  mental  alienation  which  he 
afterwards  manifested.  It  wms,  moreover,  his  great  mis- 
fortune that  his  age  should  have  afforded  no  other  sphere 
for  a  delicate  and  candid  mind  than  a  court  honey- 
combed with  intrigue  and  jealousy.  Yet  the  fate  of  so 
morbidly  sensitive  a  spirit  could  hardly  have  been  mate- 
rially different ;  it  is  only  wonderful  that  he  should 
have  regained  so  much  of  his  intellect  and  died  master 
of  himself.  Courtly  society  and  religious  excitement 
between  them  admirably  trained  his  magnificent  genius 
to  write  \S\^  Jerusalem  Delivered^  in  its  relation  to  general 
culture  the  epic  of  the  Roman  Catholic  revival,  but,  from 
the  large-hearted  humanity  of  the  author,  happily  much 

more. 

The  circumstances  of  Tasso's  youth  were  such  as  to 
intensify  the  innate  melancholy  of  his  disposition.  His 
father  Bernardo,  whom  we  have  met  with  as  a  poet  and 
a  high-minded  cavalier,  ruined  himself  and  his  family 
within  a  few  years  after  Torquato's  birth  at  Sorrento 
(1C44)  by  the  noble  imprudence  of  the  advice  wiiich  he 


240 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE 


i;l| 


gave  to  his  Neapolitan  patron,  and,  though  afterwards 
the  servant  of  princes,  died  in  poverty.  When  twelve 
years  old  Tasso  lost  his  mother,  poisoned,  as  was 
thought,  by  her  relatives,  to  rob  her  husband  of  her 
portion.  We  have  spoken  of  the  Jesuitry  which  marred 
his  early  education  ;  afterwards,  however,  he  was  brought 
up  in  a  much  saner  manner.  At  Urbino,  where  his 
father  found  a  temporary  refuge,  afterwards  in  busy 
Venice  and  at  Padua,  where  he  ineffectually  studied  law, 
he  had  become  a  master  of  classics,  mathematics,  and 
philosophy,  and  had  not  only  read  but  annotated  Dante. 
By  the  time  (1565)  when  he  became  attached  to  the 
court  of  Ferrara,  he  had  published  his  Rinaldo^  in  form 
an  imitation  of  Ariosto,  but  indicative  of  a  new  spirit ; 
and  had  less  fortunately  signalised  the  termination  of  a 
two  years'  residence  at  Bologna  by  a  scrape  in  which 
he  had  involved  himself  by  reciting  a  pasquinade  upon 
the  university,  which  not  unnaturally  caused  him  to  be 
accused  of  having  written  it.  This  adventure  at  least 
evinced  serious  deficiency  in  tact — an  endowment  more 
essential  than  genius  in  the  situation  where  he  now 
found  himself. 

Tasso's  immediate  obligations  at  the  court  of  Ferrara 
were  to  Luigi,  Cardinal  d'Este,  brother  of  the  Duke,  who 
seems  to  have  expected  nothing  from  him  but  duteous 
attendance,  and  the  completion  of  the  great  poem  of 
which  the  Rinaldo  had  given  promise,  and  whose  theme 
was  still  unfixed.  Nothing  appears  to  the  Cardinal's 
disadvantage  ;  nor  is  any  especial  reproach  addressed  to 
his  high-spirited  brother  the  Duke,  except  the  heavy 
taxation  he  imposed  to  maintain  a  magnificence  dispro- 
portioned  to  his  revenue.  The  two  great  ladies  of  the 
court,  the  Duke's  sisters,   were   decidedly  sympathetic, 


THE  COURT  OF  FERRARA 


24 1 


and  there  seems  no  reason  to  attribute  malevolence  to 
his  fellow-courtiers.  The  situation  of  this  child  of  genius 
at  a  court  was  indeed  a  false  one,  and  could  have  no 
fortunate  issue  ;  yet  the  innate  germ  of  insanity  would 
almost  certainly  have  developed  itself,  whatever  the  ex- 
ternal circumstances  of  his  lot.  For  five  or  six  years  all 
wx^nt  wxll.  Tasso  chose  the  subject  of  his  poem, 
laboured  diligently  at  it,  attracted  universal  admiration 
by  the  brilliancy  and  fluency  of  his  occasional  composi- 
tions, disputed  successfully  with  the  elite  of  Ferrara  on 
the  subject  of  Love,  and  in  1571  accompanied  the  Car- 
dinal on  a  mission  to  France.  The  French  court  had 
not  yet  resolved  upon  the  St.  Bartholomew,  and  its 
coquettings  with  the  Huguenots  scandalised  the  devout 
poet.  He  composed  two  discourses  upon  France  and 
its  affairs,  which,  although  in  some  respects  fanciful,  dis- 
play much  penetration.  On  his  return  he  quitted  the 
Cardinal's  service  for  no  very  apparent  reason,  and 
shortly  afterwards  entered  the  Duke's.  This  would 
brinu  him  into  more  intimate  relations  with  the  Duke's 
sisters.  One  of  these,  Lucrezia,  soon  contracted,  avow- 
edly for  reasons  of  state,  a  marriage  with  the  Duke 
of  Urbino  ;  but  Leonora,  weak  in  health  and  devoted 
to  good  works,  remained  single.  With  her  the  ro- 
mance of  Tasso's  life  is  associated  ;  and  although  the 
belief  that  a  presumptuous  attachment  occasioned  his 
imprisonment  is  undoubtedly  groundless,  the  attach- 
ment itself  is  the  evident  inspiration  of  much  of  his 
lyrical  poetry  : 

"  Lady^  though  cruel  desthiy  deny 

To  follow  you  ^  aiui  eager  feet  enchains^ 
Ever  the  heart  upon  your  vestige  strains^ 
And  save  your  tresses  knows  not  any  tie. 


242  ITALIAN  LITERATURE 

And  as  the  birdiing  doth  attendant  fly  ^ 

Lured  by  the  hand  that  tempting  food  detains^ 
Mo7'cd  by  like  cause  it  folloius  you  and  plains  y 

Pining  for  consolation  from  your  eye. 

Gtntly  iL'ithin  your  hand  the  roamer  take 
Into  your  breast^  and  let  it  nestle  there ^ 
Soothed,  to  great  blissfubicss  in  narrow  span. 

Until  at  length  its  soul  in  song  awake, 
And  its  dear  woe  a  fid  your  great  worth  declare 
From  Adrids  shore  to  shores  Etrurian." 

Such  verses  are  too  deeply  felt  for  mere  compliment, 
and,  if  sincere,  could  only  he  addressed  to  some  one 
much  ahove  himself  in  station.  In  another  sonnet  a 
consciousness  of  presumption  is  clearly  indicated  : 

"  Of  leant s  and  Phaethon  hast  read? 

Thoiilt  kno7sj  how  one  was  in  these  waters  whirled, 

JlVun  he  with  orient  light  would  wake  the  world. 
And  with  sun^sflre  endiadeni  his  head; 
That  other  in  the  sea^  wh^n,  rashly  spread. 

His  Ti'd.ren  wings  he  voyai^ing  unfurled ; 

So  headlong  everinore  the  man  be  hurled 
Who  ways  divine  witii  mortal  foot  would  tread. 
But  who  shall  quake  in  difjhult  emprise 

If  Gods  attend  him  ?     What  is  not  allo7ued 

To  Loi-L^  wJio  knits  in  one  all  things  divine? 
Forsaking  heai'tnly  spheres  that  sing  and  shine. 

By  him  Diana  to  a  shepherd  bowed, 

A  nd  Idds  youth  was  rapt  unto  the  skiesP 

Neither  Tasso  nor  Leonora,  however,  was  of  an  amorous 
temperament  ;  and  there  is  no  reason  to  suppose  that  he 
experienced  any  great  difficulty  in  keeping  his  passion 
within  Platonic  bounds.  The  hidden  flame  may  well 
have  wrought  him  to  the  production  of  his  unsurpassed 
Aminta  in  1572-73.  But  in  1574  a  severe  illness  marks 
an  era  in  his  life ;  he  is  never  again  quite  the  same  man. 


TASSO'S   INSANITY 


243 


In  15/5  we  encounter  the  first  decided  symptoms  of  an 
unsettled  mind  in  querulousness  and  morbid  suspicion, 
augmented,  we  may  w^ell  believe,  by  the  vexations  at- 
tendant upon  the  revision  of  his  now  completed  epic. 
He  thought,  and  with  justice,  that  he  had  wTitten  a 
truly  religious  poem,  and  he  now  found  the  eccle- 
siastical reaction  demanding  by  the  mouth  of  Silvio 
Antoniano,  a  type  of  the  Roman  Catholic  Puritan  of 
that  ungenial  day,  that  it  should  be  adapted  to  the 
reading  of  monks  and  nuns.  Solerti,  his  chief  modern 
biographer,  seems  inclined  to  consider  "his  two  years* 
warfare  with  bigotry  and  pedantry "  the  principal  cause 
of  his  insanity ;  Carducci  rather  accuses  his  Jesuit  edu- 
cation. Both  were  actual  causes,  more  potent  and 
maliiznant  than  his  sentimental  attachment  to  Leonora ; 
but  in  truth  the  germ  of  insanity  had  always  been  latent 
in  his  brain,  and  the  special  occasion  of  its  manifestation 
was  comparatively  immaterial. 

Happily,  as  Settembrini  justly  distinguishes,  it  was 
not  obscuration  or  decay,  but  exalted  tension  of  the 
mind,  and  left  the  power  of  thinking  and  writing 
almost  unimpaired,  except  under  the  influence  of 
violent  paroxysm.  The  disorder  assumed  the  special 
form  of  morbid  suspicion,  a  constant  dread  of  inimical 
machinations,  and  self-accusation  of  imaginary  heresies 
He  fled  from  Ferrara  only  to  return  ;  and  at  length 
(July  1579)  a  frenzied  attack  upon  a  retainer  of  the  court 
necessitated  his  confinement  as  a  lunatic.  He  would 
not  have  been  subjected  to  the  indignity  of  chains  in  our 
day,  but  the  psychiatry  of  that  age  knew  no  better,  and 
the  best  proof  that  its  methods  were  not  utterly  perverse 
is  the  speedy  restoration  of  his  reason  in  a  much  greater 
measure  than  could  have  been  hoped.    At  first  he  was 


244 


ITAILAN  LITERATURE 


unquestionably  maniacal ;  but  his  state  gradually  became 
one  of  apparent  sanity  infested  by  delusions,  to  which 
many  of  the  painful  particulars  alleged  in  his  letters  are 
to  be  ascribed.  One  prevailing  hallucination  was  the 
frequent  visitation  of  a  familiar  spirit,  with  whom  he  held 
long  dialogues.  His  treatment  improved  with  his  mental 
condition  ;  though  sometimes,  by  the  inattention  of  his 
custodians,  as  we  must  think,  short  of  necessary  food,  he 
had  comfortable  apartments,  was  allowed  to  carry  on  an 
extensive  and  apparently  uncontrolled  correspondence, 
and  produced  enough  excellent  w^ork,  chiefiy  prose  dia- 
logues, to  prove  at  least  the  enjoyment  of  numerous  lucid 
intervals.  At  length,  in  July  1586,  he  was  permitted  to 
retire  to  Mantua.  Alphonso  appears  to  have  behaved 
becomingly  to  the  poet,  considered  merely  as  an  un- 
happy vassal  :  it  is  no  special  reproach  to  him  to  have 
been  neither  an  Alexander  the  Great  nor  a  Wolfe  to 
rightly  appraise  the  comparative  worth  of  the  Jerusalem 
Delivered  and  the  ducal  crown  of  Ferrara. 

The  remainder  of  Tasso's  life  was  spent  in  restless 
wanderings  to  and  fro  between  courts  and  cities,  like 
the  tossings  of  a  sick  man  who  vainly  seeks  ease  by 
shifting  his  position  upon  his  couch.  He  could  not 
live  without  a  patron,  and  no  patron  long  contented 
him  r  w^ould  be  tedious  to  tell  how^  often  he  forsook 
and  resought  Mantua,  Florence,  Rome,  Naples ;  he  even 
made  overtures  of  reconciliation  to  Ferrara.  It  was  not 
his  fault,  but  sheer  mental  infirmity,  by  which,  however, 
his  reason,  though  frequently  obscured  or  misled,  w^as 
never  again  overthrown.  At  Naples  his  friend  Manso 
heard  a  profound  argument  between  him  and  his  familiar 
spirit ;  both  voices  were  his  own,  but  of  this  Tasso 
was  unconscious.     He  had  completed  and  published  his 


"THE  CONQUEST  OF  JERUSALEM"       245 

tragedy,  Torrismondo,  at  Mantua  in  1586;  at  Naples  the 
exhortations  of  Manso's  mother  led  him  to  compose  his 
blank-verse  poem  on  the  Week  of  Creation  (//  Mondo 
Creato),  chiefly  remarkable  for  its  evident  influence  on 
the  style  and  versification  of  Milton.  The  latter  books, 
written  in  sickness,  evince  some  languor,  but  no  symp- 
toms of  disordered  faculties  appear,  although  the  ser- 
vility of  the  pseudo-religious  sentiment  painfully  evinces 
how  much  ecclesiastical  influences  had  enslaved  him, 
and  how  he  had  fallen  away  from  the  free  spirit  of  the 
Renaissance. 

Another  work  of  Tasso's  decline,  the  reconstruction 
of  the  Jerusalem  Delivered  under  the  title  of  the  Con- 
quest of  Jerusalem  J  although  an  error  of  judgment,  yet 
rather  indicates  undue  sensitiveness  to  criticism  than 
insanity.  Imperfect  as  the  first  editions  had  been,  the 
Jerusalem  had  been  received  with  enthusiasm,  but  had 
also  excited  much  pedantic  and  some  bigoted  censure. 
The  general  result  had  been  to  convince  Tasso  that  his 
poem  w^as  too  romantic  and  not  sufficiently  epical ; 
which,  abstractedly  considered,  was  true,  but  simply 
arose  from  the  fact  that  his  genius  was  rather  romantic 
than  epic.  In  endeavouring  to  bring  his  poem  nearer 
Homer  he  led  it  away  from  Nature,  and  the  beauties 
which  he  introduced  bore  no  proportion  to  those  which 
he  retrenched.  The  new  recension  fell  entirely  flat,  and 
is  now  almost  unknown  ;  although  had  the  Jerusalem 
Delivered  never  been  published,  the  Conquest  would  un- 
doubtedly have  gained  Tasso  a  considerable  name.  It 
was  dedicated  to  a  new  patron,  Cardinal  Cinthio  Aldo- 
brandini,  nephew  of  Pope  Clement  VI II.,  and  all  allu- 
sions to  the  house  of  Este,  for  whose  heritage  the  Pope, 
"hushed  in  grim  repose,"  was  patiently  waiting,  were 
17 


jiiMMiilillSiniiiiiHiiyiMii^ifdittUlliiid 


246 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE 


carefully  expunged.  Cinthio  proved  a  kind  and  con- 
siderate patron  ;  and  Clement,  who  was  endowed  with  a 
regal  instinct  for  doing  tlie  right  thing  at  the  right  time, 
was  on  the  point  of  honouring  Tasso  with  a  public  coro- 
nation after  the  example  of  Petrarch,  when  on  April  25, 
1595,  death  removed  him  from  earthly  honours  and  in- 
dignities in  the  convent  of  San  Onofrio,  where  he  had 
for  some  time  found  an  asylum,  and  where  the  crown 
which  should  have  arrayed  his  temples  was  placed  upon 

his  bier. 

Apart  from  the  failings  without  wliich  he  would  hardly 
have  been  a  poet,  and  the  iniirmities  for  wiiich  it  would 
be  unjust  to  make  him  responsible,  Tasso's  deportment 
throughout  life  was  that  of  an  amiable,  high-minded, 
and  accomplished  gentleman.  Two  defects  alone  pro- 
duce a  painful  impression— the  entire  lack  of  any  sense 
of  humour,  and  the  apparent  indifference  to  all  public 
interests  outside  of  court  and  ecclesiastical  life.  The 
former  of  these  was  congenital,  irremediable,  and  bitterly 
expiated  by  the  undignified  predicaments  in  which  it  in- 
volved him  ;  the  latter  would  not  have  existed  if  he  had 
lived  in  a  better  age.  He  did,  indeed,  like  Spenser  and 
Tennyson,  attribute  a  didactic  and  allegorical  purpose  to 
his  poem  which  may  have  been  patent  to  his  own  mind, 
but  with  which  no  reader,  if  not  a  commentator  also,  ever 
concerned  himself.  Yet  the  significance  of  the  Jerusalem 
Delivered  does  not  solely  consist  in  the  beauty  of  the  lan- 
guage and  the  exquisiteness  of  the  characters  :  although 
an  artificial,  it  is  in  some  sense  a  national  epic.  Thanks 
mainly  to  the  pressure  of  foreign  tyrants,  Protestantism 
and  the  Renaissance  both  had  for  the  time  been  crushed 
in  Italy,  and  the  Italian  poet  who  would  be  national  must 
write  in  tlie  spirit  of  the  reaction.      Catholicism  was  put- 


''JERUSALEM   DELIVERED" 


247 


ting  forth  its  utmost  strength  to  drive  back  the  Ottoman 
and  the  heretic ;  and  although,  when  Tasso  began  his 
Jerusalem^  he  could  have  foreseen  neither  Lepanto  nor 
the  St.  Bartholomew,  it  is  a  remarkable  instance  of  the 
harmony  which  pervades  all  human  affairs,  that  both 
should  have  happened  ere  he  had  completed  it.  Had 
either  been  the  subject  of  his  poem,  the  result  would 
have  been  utter  failure;  but  the  great  theme  of  the 
Crusades  exhibits  the  dominant  thought  of  his  own 
day  exalted  to  a  commanding  elevation,  set  at  an  awful 
distance,  and  purged  of  all  contemporary  littleness ; 
transfigured  in  the  radiance  of  poetry  and  history.  A 
nobler  subject  for  epic  song  could  not  well  be  found, 
save  for  the  defect  which  it  shares  with  almost  all 
epics  which  have  been  created  by  study  and  refiec* 
tion,  and  have  not,  like  the  Iliady  grown  spontaneously 
out  of  the  heart  and  mind  of  a  great  people.  The 
principal  action  is  insufficient  for  the  poem,  and  needs 
to  be  eked  out  and  adorned  by  copious  episodes. 
The  jEneid  w^ould  present  a  poor  figure  without  the 
burning  of  Troy,  the  death  of  Dido,  and  -^neas's 
descent  to  the  shades ;  the  Jerusalem  is  still  more 
indebted  to  Clorinda  and  Armida,  and  the  embeUish- 
ment  is  still  more  loosely  connected  with  the  poem's 
ostensible  purpose.  Tasso's  genius  was  in  many  re- 
spects truly  epical  ;  yet,  the  nearer  he  approaches  lyric 
or  pastoral,  the  more  thoroughly  he  seems  at  home- 
That  his  Saracens  should  be  more  interesting  than  his 
Christians,  and  his  Christians  most  interesting  when 
least  Christian,  was  perhaps  inevitable.  It  is  a  proof  of 
the  essential  excellence  of  human  nature  that,  unless 
in  very  extreme  cases,  its  sympathies  are  always  most 
readily  enlisted  by   the  weaker  side.      Homer  himself 


248 


ITALIAN   LITERATURE 


could  not  avoid  makinj:*  Hector  more  attractive  than 
Achilles.  Another  defect  lay  less  in  the  nature  of  things 
than  in  the  spirit  of  the  age,  the  occasional  anticipation 
of  the  false  t.^te  of  the  seventeenth  century.  Italy  was 
weary  of  tlie  elegant  exteriors  and  empty  interiors  of  the 
compositions  of  Bembo  and  Molza.  A  Wordsworth, 
arising  to  proclaim  a  return  to  nature,  might  have  en- 
dowed her  with  a  new  age  of  great  literature,  but  the 
circumstances  of  the  time  absolutely  forbade  any  such 
apparition,  and  the  craving  for  vitality  and  vigour  had 
to  be  appeased  by  a  show  of  intellectual  dexterity  and 
mere  exaggeration.  Tasso  betrays  just  enough  of  the  pre- 
monitory symptoms  of  this  literary  plague  to  call  down 
the  wrath  of  Boileau,  whose  outrageous  denunciation  has 
been  remembered  where  measured  reproof  would  have 
been  forgotten. 

When  all  has  lieen  said  that  can  be  said,  i\\it  Jerusalem 
Delivered  remains  a  very  great  poem,  the  greatest  of 
all  the  artificial  epics  after  the  yEneid  and  Paradise 
Lost  (for  Ariosto's  poem,  so  frequently  paralleled 
with  it,  is  not  an  epic  at  all).  That  Tasso  should 
approach  Virgil  more  nearly  than  any  other  poet  is 
perhaps  unfortunate  for  him ;  the  Jerusalem  and  the 
yEneid  constantly  admit  of  comparison,  and  wherever 
comparison  is  possible  the  former  is  a  little  behind. 
To  compare  Tasso  with  Milton  seems  almost  profana- 
tion ;  and  indeed,  if,  as  so  often  assumed,  the  greatness 
of  an  epic  poet  is  to  be  measured  by  his  sublimity, 
the  Jerusalem  is  entirely  out  of  the  field.  Milton 
is  the  sublimest  of  non-dramatic  poets  after  Homer  : 
Tasso,  always  dignified  and  sometimes  grand,  rarely 
attains  sublimity,  and  falls  particularly  short  of  it  in  the 
description  of  the  infernal  council,  where  comparison 


•'JERUSALEM   DELIVERED'*  249 

with  Milton  is  most  obvious.  Yet  he  has  advantages 
which  it  would  be  unjust  to  deny.  He  has  not,  like 
Milton,  proposed  to  himself  an  unattainable  object  :  he 
has  not  to  justify  the  ways  of  God  to  man,  but  to  recount 
the  conquest  of  Jerusalem.  He  is  more  uniform  in 
merit  :  it  cannot  be  said  of  his  poem  that  the  catastrophe 
takes  place  in  the  middle,  and  that  the  interest  steadily 
declines  thenceforth. 

What,  however,  especially  distinguishes  Tasso,  not 
only  from  Milton,  but  from  modern  epic  poets  in 
general,  is  the  number  and  excellence  of  his  charac- 
ters, mostly  of  his  own  creation.  Rinaldo,  Tancred, 
Argante,  Emireno,  Solimano,  Clorinda,  Armida,  Erminia, 
form  a  gallery  of  portraits  whose  picturesqueness  and 
variety  redeem  Tasso's  inferiority  in  other  respects ; 
while  at  the  same  time,  even  were  his  canvas  less  bril- 
liantly occupied,  it  could  not  be  said  that  his  poem 
wanted  either  the  unity,  the  interest,  the  dignity,  the 
just  proportion,  the  poetical  spirit,  the  elevated  dic- 
tion, or  the  harmonious  versification  essential  to  a 
great  epic.  The  great  defect  of  the  poem,  regarded 
as  an  epic,  is  that  Tasso's  bent,  like  Virgil's,  was 
rather  towards  the  pathetic,  the  picturesque,  and  the 
romantic,  than  towards  the  sublime  and  majestic. 
He  can  command  dignity  and  grandeur  on  occa- 
sion ;  but,  even  as  the  jEneid  opens  most  readily  at 
Dido,  Marcellus,  or  Euryalus,  so  the  Jerusalem  attracts 
most  by  its  female  characters,  Erminia,  Clorinda,  and 
Armida.  Armida  is  a  charming  personage,  an  im- 
provement upon  the  Alcina  of  Ariosto,  but  a  passage 
like  the  following,  rendered  by  Miss  Ellen  Gierke, 
would  be  more  appropriately  placed  in  an  Orlando  or 
an  Odyssey^  than  in   an   epic   on   so   high   and   grave  a 


2SO 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE 


theme   as   the   redemption   of   the   holy   city   from   the 
unbeliever  : 

"  Arrived  on  shore ^  he  in  rci'icw  doth  pass 
The  spot  with  eager  glance^  but  nought  descries^ 
Save  caves  and  water-flowers,  and  trees  and grass^ 
So  deems  himself  befooled;  but  in  such  wise 
The  place  doth  tempt — such  charms  did  nature  mass 
Together  there — that  on  the  sward  he  lieSy 
J  lis  forehead  from  its  heavy  artnour  eases^ 
And  bares  it  to  the  sweet  and  soothing  breezes. 

Then  of  a  gurgling  murmur  he  was  ''ware 
Within  the  stream^  and  thither  turned  his  eyes^ 

A  71  d  saw  a  ripple  in  ^ mid  current  there 
Whirl  round  about  itself  in  eddying  guise ^ 

And  thence  emerge  a  glint  of  golden  hair. 

And  thence  a  maiden's  lovely  face  uprise ; 

Her  voice  the  ear  enthralled^  her  face  the  vision^ 

And  heaven  hung  tranced  upon  her  notes  Elysian. 

And  now  the  false  onis  song  of  treacherous  wile 
Overpowers  the  youth  with  slumberous  heaviness^ 
And  by  degrees  that  serpent  base  and  vile 
Subdues  his  senses  with  dermastering  stress, 
Nor  death's  still  mimicry,  wrought  by  her  guile. 
Could  thunders  rouse  from  ;  other  sounds  far  less. 
Then  the  foul  sorceress  from  her  ambush  showingy 
Stands  over  him,  with  hate  and  fury  glowing. 

But  as  she  gazing  scans  the  gentle  sighs. 
The  stir  of  whose  soft  breathing  she  can  marky 
The  smile  that  lurked  around  the  beauteous  eyes. 
Now  closed  {wiiat  then  their  living  glances  dark  f\ 
She  pauses  thrilled,  then  droops  in  tender  guise. 
Beside  him     quenched  her  hatreds  every  sparky 
As  rapt  abci'e  that  radiant  bro-n*  inclining. 
She  seems  Xnrcissus  der  the  fountain  pining. 

The  de7u  of  heat  there  starting,  she  n^er  tires 
With  tender  fingers  in  her  veil  to  dry ; 
While  his  check  softly  fanning,  she  desires 
The  heat  to  tcmptir  of  the  summer  sky ; 


"JERUSALEM   DELIVERE  251 

Thus  {who  could  have  believed  it?)  smouldering  fires 
Of  hidden  orbs  dissolved  the  frost,  whereby 
That  adamantine  heart  its  core  did  cover. 
And  the  harsh  foe  becomes  the  tender  lover. 

Pale  privet,  roses  red,  and  lilies  white. 
Perennial  blooming  on  that  lovely  shore, 
Blent  with  strange  art,  she  wove  in  fetters  light 
Yet  close  of  clasp,  and  flung  them  softly  der 
His  fieck  and  arms  and  feet;  thus  helpless  quite 
She  bound  and  held  him  fast,  and  sleeping  bore 
Unto  the  prison  of  her  car  aerial. 
And  carried  in  swift  flight  through  realms  ethereal:' 

Few  of  the  great  artificial  epics  of  the  world,  those 
which  have  not  been  moulded  out  of  songs  and  legends 
welling  up  spontaneously  from  the  heart  of  the  people, 
can  sustain  very  strict  criticism  of  their  poetical  eco- 
nomy, and  the  Jerusalem  Delivered  perhaps  less  than  any 
other.    The  subject  of  the  Crusades,  indeed,  is  a  very 
great  one,  too  vast  even   to    be   embraced    in   a  single 
poem  ;  and  the  capture  of  Jerusalem,  though   of  all  its 
incidents  incomparably  the  most  fit  for  poetical  treat- 
ment, is  not  of  itself  sufficiently  extensive  for  an  epic 
poem.     It  must  consequently  be  enriched  by  episodes, 
which  in  Tasso's  hands  have  tlTe  double  fault  of  jarring 
with  the  spirit  of  the  main  action,  and  of  obscuring  its 
due   predominance  by  their  superior  attractiveness.     It 
might  perhaps  have  been  otherwise   if  Tasso  had  been 
cast  in  the  mould  of  Milton  or  had  lived  in  an  austerer 
age.    Italian  poetry,  however,  was  so  saturated  by  the  in- 
fluence of  Petrarch  and  Ariosto  that  any  embellishments 
of  the  chief  action  must  of  necessity  partake  of  the  char- 
acter of  love  and  romance.     The  former  class,  however 
charming  in  themselves,  inevitably  depressed  the  char- 
acter of  an  epic  so  largely  depending  upon  them  as  the 


252 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE 


Jerusalem^  below  that  proper  to  an  heroic  poem.  The 
romance  and  sorcery,  though  recommended  to  Tasso 
as  introducing^  the  supernatural,  then  considered  indis- 
pensable to  epic  poetry,  provoke  criticism  by  their  incon- 
sistency. If  the  enchanters  Ismeno  and  Armida  could 
do  so  much,  they  mi^^ht  have  done  a  great  deal  more. 
Ismeno  has  all  the  infernal  hosts  at  his  command,  and 
makes  hardly  any  use  of  them.  Pluto  is  a  most  lazy  and 
incompetent  devil.  Armida  might  easily  have  made  her 
magic  island  impregnable.  The  whole  contrivance  of 
the  enchanted  wood,  though  full  of  descriptive  beauties, 
is  weak  as  poetical  machinery  ;  it  could  have  offered  no 
real  obstacle  to  the  Christians.  And  it  is  almost  comical 
to  observe  that  amid  all  the  confusion  the  venerable  Peter 
the  Hermit  knows  perfectly  well  what  is  to  happen,  can 
remedy  every  misfortune  when  he  chooses,  and  could 
have  prevented  it  but  for  the  convenience  of  the  poet, 
more  inexorable  than  the  fiat  of  the  F'ates. 

Tlie  merit  of  the  JcnisalejUy  then,  consists  mainly  in 
details  wliose  beauty  requires  no  exposition.  Mention 
has  already  been  made  of  the  merit  of  the  character- 
painting,  whicli  greatly  surpasses  Ariosto's.  The  hitter's 
personages  are  in  comparison  puppets  ;  Tasso's  are  living 
men  and  women.  The  passion  of  love  in  the  three  prin- 
cipal female  characters  is  exquisitely  painted,  and  admir- 
ably discriminated  in  accordance  with  the  disposition  of 
each.  Erminia,  in  particular,  calls  up  the  sweetest  image 
conceivable  of  womanly  tenderness  and  devotion.  Rinaldo 
is  less  interesting  than  he  should  have  been  ;  but  Tancred 
is  the  mirror  of  chivalry ;  and  the  difficulty  of  delineating 
a  perfect  hero  without  provoking  scepticism  or  disgust 
is  overcome  as  nearly  as  possible  in  the  character  of 
Goffredo.     The  veteran  Raimondo's  insistence  upon  the 


''JERUSALEM   DELIVERED" 


253 


A 


post  of  honour  and  danger ;  the  indomitable  spirit  of 
Solimano ;  the  circumspect  valour  of  Emireno,  devoid 
of  illusion,  and  with  no  aim  but  the  fulhlment  of  duty — 
are  noble  traits,  and  the  more  so  as  the  poet  found  them 
in  himself.  The  very  last  incident  in  the  poem,  Goffredo's 
interference  to  save  his  gallant  enemy  Altamoro,  is  one 
that  could  have  occurred  to  no  one  less  noble  and 
courteous  than  the  author  of  the  Jerusalem.  It  is  very 
different  from  Bradamante's  behaviour  to  Atlante  in  the 
Orlando  Furioso. 

Another  honourable  characteristic  is  Tasso's  love  of 
science  and  discovery,  revealed  by  many  passages  in 
his  minor  poems  and  his  dialogues,  and  in  ihQ  Jerusalem 
by  the  noble  prophecy  of  the  Columbus  to  be.  His 
sonnet  to  Stigliani,  hereafter  to  be  quoted,  appears  to 
hint  that  with  better  health  and  fortune  he  would  himself 
have  taken  the  exploits  of  Columbus  as  the  subject  of 
another  epic  ;  and  he  is  said  to  have  remarked  that  the 
only  contemporary  poet  against  whom  he  felt  any  hesita- 
tion in  measuring  himself  was  Camoens,  the  singer  of  the 
discoveries  of  the  Portuguese.  This  theme,  often  essayed, 
and  never  with  success,  would  have  favoured  Tasso's 
genius  in  so  far  as  it  exempted  him  from  describing 
single  combats  and  pitched  battles.  His  battle-pieces 
are  not  ineffective,  but  he  is  evidently  more  at  home 
among  the  sorceries  of  Armida's  enchanted  garden  : 


(( ( 


Ah  mark  /'  he  sang,  *  the  rose  but  now  revealed, 
FresJi  from  its  I'eiling  sheaih  of  virgin  g7'een. 
Unfolded  yet  but  ha/f  ha/ f  yet  concealed, 
More  fair  to  ser,  the  less  it  uiay  be  seen. 
Now  view  its  bare  and  flaunting  pride  unsealed; 
All  faded  now,  as  thoui^h  it  neer  had  been 
The  beauteous  gyoi.ih,  that  while  it  bloomed  retired, 
A  thousand  maids,  a  thousand  youths  desired. 


254  ITALIAN  LITERATURE 

•  Thus  passeth  in  the  passing  of  a  day 
Life's  flower^  with  green  and  roseate  tints  imbued : 
1  /link  noty  since  Spring  leads  back  the  laughing  May^ 
The  mortal  bloom  shall  likewise  be  rene^ved. 
Cull  we  the  rose  in  mornings  primc^  ere  grey 
Dims  the  fair  7uiult^  and  cloud  and  gloom  intrude. 
Cull  we  Loves  roses  in  the  hour  appro7'ed, 
IV/ien  wiioso  loves  may  hope  to  be  belovedJ 

He  ceased^  and  with  one  voice  the  feathered  choir. 
Applauding  as  it  see  me  d^  resume  their  strain; 
Again  the  billings  amorous  doves  suspire ^ 
And  every  creature  turns  to  love  again;  ^ 
Chaste  laurel  burns,  the  thrilling  sap  mounts  higher 
In  rugged  oaksy  light  foliage  Putters  fain; 
And  earth  and  ocean  seem  to  throb  and  move 
With  softest  sense  and  sweetest  sighs  of  Love. ^^ 

The  alterations  Introduced  by  Tasso  when  he  re- 
modelled his  epic  amount  to  an  admission  of  the  justice 
of  the  charges  brought  against  him,  of  having  deviated 
too  much  into  picturesque  episodes,  and  been,  in  short, 
too  lyrical.  It  might  therefore  have  been  expected  that 
he  would  have  taken  a  supreme  place  in  lyrical  poetry, 
and  the  anticipation  would  have  been  confirmed  by  the 
triumph  of  his  Aminta.  It  is  not  entirely  justified  by 
his  other  lyrical  performances ;  few  of  his  numerous 
canzoiii  and  multitudinous  sonnets  being  absolutely  in 
the  front  rank.  The  cause  is  probably  want  of  con- 
centration ;  he  was  always  ready  with  a  sonnet  at  call, 
and  composed  far  too  many  upon  petty  and  trivial  occa- 
sions. His  best  lyrics,  nevertheless,  have  a  property  which 
no  other  Italian  poetry  po^.^or.^^  in  like  measure  -  a  cer- 
tain majestic  vehemence,  like  that  of  a  mighty  river,  or 
what  Shakespeare  describes  as  **  the  proud  full  sail  of  his 

^  ' '  O^ni  iinimal  di  amar  si  ricvnsiiflia. "    A  line  taken  bodily  out  of  PetrarcL 


TASSO'S  LYRICAL  POETRY 


255 


great  verse."  It  has  even  been  argued,  mainly  on  the 
strength  of  "  that  affable  familiar  ghost,"  that  Tasso  was 
the  rival  of  whom  Shakespeare  complains  ;  however  this 
may  be,  no  description  could  better  express  the  pecu- 
liarity of  his  lyrical  style.  The  manner,  unfortunately,  is 
often  far  in  advance  of  the  matter.  There  is  no  more 
splendid  example,  for  instance,  than  his  "Coronal"  ^  of 
sonnets,  where  a  sonority  and  impetuosity  that  might 
have  celebrated  the  battle  of  Lepanto  are  squandered 
upon  the  house  of  Este.  The  same  qualities,  however, 
are  always  present  when  his  feelings  are  deeply  moved, 
as  w^hen  he  accompanies  in  thought  his  lady  to  the  verge 
of  the  sea  : 

*'  Silver  and  diamond  and  gem  and  gold- 
Wealth  from  wrecks  anciently  by  tempests  rent — 
And  coral  of  its  own  with  pearl  besprent , 

The  sea  i?i  homage  at  thy  feet  uprolled; — 

For  whom  might  Jupiter  agaift  be  bold 
In  shape  of  bull  to  plough  the  elemetit — 
And,foa?ning  at  thy  feet  in  billows  spent , 

With  liquid  tongue  its  murmuring  story  told : 

O  Nymphy  O  Goddess,  iiotfrom  caverned  bower 
Ofocea?i  sprung,  but  heaven,  who  canst  enchain 
My  seething  turbulence,  not  now  the  power 

Of  gentle  moon  cotiducts  the  obedient  main. 

But  thine;  fear  nothing;  I  but  swell  to  shower 
My  gifts,  and  turn  me  to  my  deeps  againP 

*  A  series  of  twelve  sonnets  on  the  same  subject,  interlinked  by  each  suo 
cessive  piece  beginning  with  the  last  line  of  the  preceding. 


CHAPTER   XIX 

THE  PROSE  OF  THE  SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY 

The  seventeenth  century  is  for  Italy  a  period  of  stagnation, 
relieved  only  by  the  endeavour  to  conceal  decay  by  fantas- 
tic extravagance,  by  a  fortunate  reaction  near  its  termina- 
tion, and  by  some  genuine  progress  in  isolated  directions, 
which  would  have  been  fruitful  of  important  results  in  a 
better  age.  The  false  taste  which  disfigured  the  epoch 
was  not  peculiar  to  Italy  ;  but  while  in  other  countries  it 
appears  a  symptom  of  exuberant  life,  a  disorder  incident 
to  infancy,  in  Italy  it  dominates  literature,  some  depart- 
ments of  practical  knowledge  and  study  excepted.  What 
elsewhere  was  boisterous  youth,  was  in  Italy  premature 
old  age.  No  other  cause  for  this  decadence  can  be 
assigned  than  the  withering  of  national  life  under  the 
blight  of  civil  and  ecclesiastical  tyranny.  The  reform  of 
the  Church,  the  purification  of  morals,  excellent  things 
in  themselves,  had  been  bought  from  the  counter-Refor- 
mation at  far  too  high  a  price. 

We  have  indicated  1564  as  the  year  in  which  the 
North  of  Europe  begins  to  gain  steadily  at  the  ex- 
pense of  the  South.  The  date  especially  fatal  to  Italy 
may  perhaps  be  carried  live  years  back,  to  1559, 
when  the  long  contest  between  France  and  Spain  for 
supremacy  in   the   Peninsula  was  decided   in  favour  of 

the  latter  by  the  treaty  of  Cateau-Cambresis.     Up  to  this 

336 


THE  SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY 


257 


time  the  Italians  had  been  in  some  measure  able  to 
play  their  oppressors  off  against  each  other  ;  and  such 
from  Alexander  the  Sixth's  time  had  been  the  policy  of 
the  Popes,  who  all  wished  the  expulsion  of  the  bar- 
barians, in  so  far  as  compatible  with  their  own  family 
interests.  The  accommodation  between  the  foreign 
Herod  and  the  foreign  Pilate  put  an  end  to  this  system. 
The  hope  of  the  independence  of  Italy  was  definitively 
resigned,  the  minor  princes  submitted  to  be  Spanish 
vassals,  and  the  Popes  indemnified  themselves  by  enlist- 
ing the  monarchs  in  support  of  their  spiritual  authority. 
Jesuits,  seminary  priests,  and  inquisitors  darkened  the 
land,  and  the  ever-augmenting  pressure  culminated  at 
last  in  tlie  rules  for  censorship  promulgated  by  Clement 
VIII.  in  1595,  which  effectually  stifled  freedom  of  thought, 
and  stopped  the  dissemination  of  knowledge,  except  by 
leave  of  those  whose  interest  it  was  to  prevent  it.  Not 
merely  were  heretical  or  licentious  writings  interdicted, 
but  criticism  on  rulers  and  ecclesiastics,  and  praises  of 
the  freedom  and  virtue  of  antiquity. 

Such  satires  as  those  in  which,  in  the  days  of  the 
Renaissance,  Alamanni  and  other  orthodox  Catholics 
had  scourged  the  sins  of  Church  and  State,  could  now 
be  printed  only  in  Protestant  countries.  Anything 
might  be  prohibited  that  shocked  the  prejudice  or  sur- 
passed the  comprehension  of  an  ignorant  and  bigoted 
priest.  Authors  were  discouraged  from  writing,  book- 
sellers from  publishing,  and  readers  from  reading,  while 
the  frivolous  pedantry  and  execrable  taste  of  the  Jesuits 
infected  almost  all  the  schools.  Renaissance  had  become 
reaction ;  the  new^  birth  had  passed  into  the  second  death. 
This  iron  despotism  could  not  be  perpetually  maintained. 
It  was  impossible  to  shut  Italians  out  from  all  kuow^ledge 


2S8 


ITALIAN   LITERATURE 


of  the  intellectual  progress  of  Protestant  countries,  nor 
in  the  universal  flux  of  things  could  the  stern  inquisitorial 
type  of  ecclesiastical  ruler  be  stereotyped  for  ever.  In 
course  of  time  the  zclanti  Popes  gave  way  to  affable  and 
humane  personages,  but  the  nation  had  meanwhile  sunk 
into  a  mental  torpor,  in  which,  with  a  few  glorious  ex- 
ceptions, it  remained  plunged  until  the  crash  of  the  old 
order  of  things  in  the  French  Revolution.  The  exclusion 
of  the  vivifying  spirit  of  the  Reformation,  the  impossi- 
bility of  so  much  as  alluding,  except  in  disparagement, 
to  the  chief  transaction  of  contemporary  history,  indicate 
an  emasculation,  as  well  as  a  paralysis,  beyond  the  power 
of  language  to  express. 

The  extinction  of  the  free  spirit  of  the  Renaissance 
was  the  more  unfortunate  for  Italy,  as  it  arrested  the 
development  of  speculative  and  scientific  research  which 
seemed  opening  upon  her.  It  has  been  frequently 
observed  that  the  close  of  a  brilliant  literary  epoch  has 
coincided  with  the  birth  of  an  era  of  positive  science. 
The  early  Greek  philosophers  follow  Homer  and  the 
rhapsodists  ;  Aristotle  and  Theophrastus,  Epicurus  and 
Zeno,  succeed  the  dramatists  and  the  orators ;  the 
decline  of  Latin  literature  is  the  age  of  the  illustrious 
jurists.  Even  so,  as  the  great  authors  and  the  great 
artists  departed  from  Italy,  she  produced  her  greatest 
man  of  science,  and  a  bold  school  of  philosophers  arose 
to  challenge  the  authority  to  which  Dante  and  Aquinas 
had  bowed.  "  Philosophy,"  says  Symonds,  **took  a  new 
point  of  departure  among  the  Italians,  and  all  the  funda- 
mental ideas  wiiich  have  since  formed  the  staple  of 
modern  European  systems  were  anticipated  by  a  few 
obscure  think-,M's." 

The  chief  representative  of  physical  science,  however, 


GALILEO 


259 


was  by  no  means  obscure.  Galileo  Galilei  was  born 
in  1564,  the  year  of  the  death  of  Michael  Angelo.  The 
scientific  achievements  of  this  mighty  genius  do  not  con- 
cern us  as  such.  It  must  not  be  forgotten,  however, 
that  he  was  also  an  accomplished  author  in  the  verna- 
cular. His  immortal  Dialogue  (1632),  the  glory  and  the 
shame  of  his  age,  is  written  in  Italian,  and  is  enumerated 
by  Italians  among  exemplars  of  diction,  testi  di  lingua. 
What  he  might  have  accomplished  if  he  had  enjoyed 
the  applause  and  sympathy  winch  greeted  a  Newton  is 
difficult  to  say  ;  but  the  contrast  betw^een  the  lot  of  the 
Master  of  the  Mint  and  the  President  of  the  Royal 
Society  on  the  one  hand,  and  that  of  the  lonely  cap- 
tive on  the  other,  is  not  greater  than  that  between 
the  condition  of  England  and  that  of  Italy.  It  is  need- 
less to  relate  the  oft-told  story  of  Galileo,  which  indeed 
rather  regards  the  history  of  science  than  that  of  litera- 
ture. We  are  only  concerned  with  him  as  a  typical 
figure,  the  most  eminent  victim  of  the  spirit  of  perse- 
cution which  deprived  Italy  of  her  supremacy  among 
intellectual  nations,  and  which,  even  before  Galileo  had 
excited  its  hatred,  had  claimed  another  victim,  less 
illustrious,  but  not  less  interesting. 

It  is  probably  owing  to  the  considerable  infusion  of 
Greek  blood  into  Naples  and  Sicily  that  the  inhabitants 
of  these  regions,  so  backward  in  many  respects  in 
comparison  with  the  rest  of  Italy,  have  displayed  a 
peculiar  genius  for  philosophical  research.  Aquinas 
was  a  Neapolitan,  and  in  our  own  day  the  subtleties 
of  German  metaphysics  have  found  a  more  sympa- 
thetic reception  and  a  more  ready  comprehension  in 
the  South  than  elsewhere  in  Italy.  The  four  chief 
Italian  thinkers  of   the   late   sixteenth  and  early  seven- 


26o 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE 


teenth  centuries  belonged  to  the  kingdom  of  Naples, 
Behxardo  Telesio  (1509-85)  has  missed  the  posthu- 
mous celebrity  of  the  others  by  escaping  their  tragic 
fate  ;  but  his  reputation  in  his  own  day  was  greater  than 
theirs.  Campanella  wept  at  his  tomb,  and  Bacon  calls 
him  the  first  experimental  observer  of  nature.  He  led 
the  wav  in  the  revolt  against  the  authority  of  Aristotle 
which  became  general  in  the  seventeenth  century,  and 
his  sensationalism  helped  to  mould  the  thought  of 
Hobbes  and  Gassendi. 

A  fiery  martyrdom,  a  sublimely  poetical   mind,  and 
an  intuition  of  modern  views  and  discoveries  have  made 
GlOKDAXO    l^Rrxo  a  more   celebrated    and   interesting 
figure  than  Tclcsio,  although  too  far  in  advance  of  his 
contemporaries   and    too    late    recognised    by    posterity 
to  be  influential   with    cither.     "The  most  faithful  and 
pithily  condensed  abstract  of  Bruno's  philosophy,"  says 
Symonds,  "  is  contained   in   Goethe's  poem,  Prodmium 
zu  Gott  iind  Welt.      Yet  this   poem   expresses  Goethe's 
thought,  and  it  is  doubtful  whether  Goethe  had  studied 
Bruno  except  in   the   work   of   his   disciple,    Spinoza." 
"  Disciple,"  it  may  be  added,  is  much  too  strong  a  word 
to  express  the   Hebrew  thinkers  relation  to  the  Nea- 
politan.   It  would  be  dif^cult  to  conceive  two  men  more 
dissimilar,  except  in  intellectual  intrepidity  and  in  love 
of  truth.     Spinoza  is  the  closest  of  reasoners,  without 
a  particle   of  poetry  in   his   composition.      Bruno  has 
magnificent  divinations,  wnth  little  reasoning  power.     If 
Spinoza    did    read    him,    he    must    have    been    greatly 
annoyed  by  him.     On  the  other  hand,  the  celebrated 
definition,  "A  God- intoxicated  man,"  which  seems  so 
inappropriate  to  the  intellectual  geometer  of  Amsterdam, 
absolutely  fits  the  rapt  Neapolitan  prophet  of  the  essen- 


BRUNO 


261 


tial  unity  of  all  things.  The  same  vehemence  which  we 
have  remarked  in  Neapolitan  men  of  letters — Pontano, 
Tansillo,  Basile  — combines  in  Bruno  with  the  meta- 
physical instinct  of  the  race  to  form  a  poet-philo- 
sopher, as  incoherent  as  if  he  had  just  emerged  from 
the  Sibyl's  cave,  but  full  of  the  most  surprising  intui- 
tions, instinct  with  the  germs  of  modern  thought  and 
discovery.  His  very  incoherence  seems  a  claim  to 
reverence  ;  it  does  not  convey  the  impression  of  intel- 
lectual inadequacy,  but  rather  of  an  inspired  message 
transcending  mortal  powers  of  speech.  A  chastened 
taste  cannot  but  be  offended  by  the  drollery  and  bur- 
lesque which,  like  a  true  Neapolitan,  Bruno  blends  with 
daring  speculation  and  serious  reflection,  as  well  as 
by  his  gaudy  rhetoric  and  exaggerated  euphuism  ;  yet 
Symonds  is  right  in  observing  that  "when  the  real 
divine  cestrum  descends  upon  him  the  thought  is 
simple,  the  diction  direct;  the  attitude  of  mind  and 
the  turn  of  expression  are  singularly  living,  surprisingly 

modern." 

Like  Galileo,  Bruno  chose  the  dialogue  as  the  most 
convenient  form  of  propagating  his  opinions,  and  unlike 
most  contemporary  philosophers,  claims  a  place  among 
vernacular  wTiters.  In  his  Spaccio  delta  Bestia  Trionfante 
and  his  comedy  //  Candelaio  he  is  satirical  ;  metaphysi- 
cally speculative  in  the  Cena  delle  Ceneriy  Delia  Causa, 
and  Dell'  Infinito  Universo ;  but  perhaps  the  most  inter- 
esting of  his  works  is  Gli  Eroici  Fiirori,  dedicated  to 
Sir  Philip  Sidney,  a  dithyramb  in  prose  and  verse  on 
the  progress  of  the  soul  to  union  with  the  Divinity. 
It  may  be  too  much  to  say  with  the  English  translator 
that  in  this  remarkable  book  the  author  "lays  down 
the  basis  for  the  religion  of  thought  and  science";  but 
18 


I 


iiilMu.ilMiii^-^..jtaMAiMa!'-J:a..j^-  ^...j>-».»-»--a«jj...>jg>K-l.  ...  «.  j.->,..a..t...:.a.jt>JI»iJIMei!»|mm||jgj[|g 


262 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE 


it  is  true  tliat  the  ordinary  ecclesiastical  ideals  are,  thrust 
aside,  and  progress  in  truth,  knowledge,  and  justice 
declared  to  be  the  end  of  man.  If  many  had  thought 
so,  none  had  said  it  so  openly.  Bruno,  however, 
never  learned  to  observe,  and  remained  all  his  life  the 
metaphysician  and  the  poet.  Chief  among  his  intuitions, 
after  his  perception  of  the  unity  of  all  existence,  must 
be  placed  his  instinctive  recognition  of  the  immense 
revolution  which  the  acceptance  of  the  Copernican 
theory  must  effect  in  religious  belief.  It  is  probable 
that  he  thus  alarmed  the  priesthood  ere  he  could 
arouse  the  laity,  and  that  to  him  must  be  ascribed  the 
persecution  of  Galileo,  nearly  a  century  after  Coper- 
nicus had  been  permitted  to  dedicate  his  treatise  to 
the  Pope. 

Bruno's  own  martyrdom  had  preceded  Galileo's  ;  he 
suffered  death  in  February  1600,  after  a  life  of  constant 
flight  and  exile,  which  at  one  time  brought  him  to 
England,  where  he  lectured  at  Oxford  and  became 
Sidney's  friend,  and  latterly  of  imprisonment.  His  fate 
is  a  striking  illustration  of  the  dismal  though  inevitable 
change  that  had  come  over  the  spirit  of  the  ecclesias- 
tical rulers  :  a  Renaissance  Pope  would  probably  have 
protected  him.  His  name  long  seemed  forgotten,  and 
his  writings  obliterated.  Early  in  the  eighteenth  century 
interest  in  him  revived,  as  is  shown  by  the  collection 
of  his  works  in  Lord  Sunderland's  library.  Brucker 
gave  an  intelligible  digest  of  his  opinions  ;  Schelling 
avowedly  sought  inspiration  from  him  ;  Coleridge  names 
him  wiih  Dante  and  Ariosto  as  one  of  the  three  most 
representative  Italians  ;  and  at  present,  even  though  he 
be  chiefly  efficient  through  his  influence  on  more  disci- 
plined geniuses  and  more  systematic  thinkers,  the  world 


CAMPANELLA 


263 


has  hardly  a  more  striking  example  of  the  truth,  "The 
stone  which  the  builders  rejected,  the  same  is  become 
the  head  of  the  corner." 

As  Bruno  is  the  personification  of  martyrdom  in  the 
cause  of  philosophical  speculation,  another  Neapolitan 
philosopher  of  the  age,  the  Dominican  Tommaso  Cam- 
pan  ella  ( 1 568-1 639)  represents  martyrdom  for  the  sake 
of  country.  Campanella  is  not  only  a  less  important 
figure  than  Bruno,  but  less  sane  and  practical.  With 
all  his  extravagance,  Bruno  is  no  visionary  ;  if  he  some- 
times appears  obscure  and  confused,  the  defect  is  not 
in  the  brain,  but  in  the  tongue.  Campanella,  though 
endowed  with  profound  ideas,  was  a  visionary  who 
based  his  hopes  of  delivering  his  country  from  the 
Spanish  yoke  on  predictions  of  the  millennium,  to  be 
fuliilled  by  the  advent  of  the  Turks,  and  was  sufti- 
ciently  paradoxical  to  dream  of  a  perfect  republic  in  the 
kingd(Mii  of  Naples.  But  this  alliance  of  mental  un- 
soundness with  extraordinary  intelligence  renders  him 
deeply  interesting  ;  unlike  the  frank  and  candid  Bruno, 
he  is  one  of  the  probleviatische  Naturcn  who,  as  Goethe 
justly  says,  perpetually  attract  mankind.  The  flower  of 
his  life  (i 599-1625)  was  spent  in  prison,  and  some  of 
it  in  torture,  on  account  of  a  conspiracy  which,  after 
all  the  investigations  of  Signor  Amabile,  remains  in  many 
respects  obscure,  but  which  was  undoubtedly  designed 
to  free  Naples  from  the  yoke,  not  only  of  Spain,  but 
of  Rome. 

Released  at  length,  Campanella  successively  found  an 
asylum  at  Rome  and  at  Paris,  wliere  he  died  in  1639. 
As  his  captivity  became  milder,  he  had  been  permitted 
to  write,  and  to  receive  visits  from  friends,  through 
whom  his  works  found  their  way  to  the  public.     Thej 


264 


ITALIAN   LITERATURE 


are  mostly  of  a  political  character.  The  chief,  De  Sensu 
ct  Magia  Naturally  is  a  curious  blending  of  philosophy 
and  occultism  ;  another,  a  defence  of  Galileo,  does 
him  honour,  even  though  he  afterwards  changed  his 
view  ;  but  another,  De  jMonarcJiia  Universalis  seeks  to 
revive  the  medireval  idea  of  the  universal  Church 
and  the  universal  Empire,  substituting  Spain  for  Ger- 
many. Until  the  rediscovery  of  his  poems,  his  literary 
reputation  principally  rested  upon  one  of  his  slightest 
productions,  his  City  of  tJie  Suity  an  Utopian  picture  of 
a  perfect  community.  It  contains  a  remarkable  anti- 
cipation of  the  steamboat  :  '*  They  possess  rafts  and 
triremes  which  go  over  the  waters  without  rowers  or 
the  force  of  the  wind,  but  by  a  marvellous  contrivance. 
And  other  vessels  tliey  liave  which  are  moved  by  the 
winds." 

Campanella's  claims  as  a  vernacular  writer  rest  entirely 
upon  his  poems,  of  which  there  are  said  to  have  been 
seven  books.  With  the  exception  of  some  extracted 
from  the  documents  of  his  trial  by  the  diligence  of 
Signor  Amabile,  all  that  remain  are  the  sonnets  printed 
in  Germany  by  his  disciple,  Tobias  Adami,  in  1622, 
and  forgotten  until  their  republication  by  Orelli,  in 
1834.  But  for  these  pieces  we  should  not  know  the 
real  Campanella,  whom  they  exhibit  in  a  more  favour- 
able light,  even  as  a  thinker,  than  does  the  brilliant 
intuition,  chequered  with  gross  credulity,  of  his  pro- 
fessedly philosophical  writings.  Like  Michael  Angelo's, 
they  are  rather  hewn  than  written — the  utterances  of  a 
powerful  intellect  and  a  passionate  heart  seeking  to 
express  themselves  through  a  medium  but  imperfectly 
mastered,  hence  vehement,  abrupt,  contorted  even  to  the 
verge  of  absurdity,  but  full  of  substance,  and  as  remote 


CAMPANELLA'S  SONNETS 


265 


J 


as  possible  from  the  polished  inanity  which  is  so  fre- 
quently a  reproach  to  the  Italian  sonnet.  Addington 
Symonds,  wrestling  with  Campanella  as  Campanella 
wrestled  with  his  own  language,  has  produced  excel- 
lent translations,  accompanied  by  a  careful  commentary. 
"That  this  sonnet,"  he  says  of  the  following,  "should 
have  been  written  by  a  Dominican  monk,  in  a  Neapoli- 
tan prison,  in  the  first  half  of  the  seventeenth  century, 
is  truly  noteworthy  : " 

"  The  people  is  a  beast  of  muddy  brain 

That  knows  not  its  own  force ^  and  therefore  stands 
Loaded  with  wood  and  stone  ;  the  powerless  hands 

Of  a  mere  child  guide  it  with  bit  and  rein. 

One  kick  would  be  enough  to  break  the  chain; 
But  the  beast  fears^  and  what  the  child  demands 
It  does ;  nor  its  own  terror  understands^ 

Confused  and  stupefied  by  bugbears  vain. 

Most  wonderful  I  with  its  own  hand  it  ties 
And  gags  itself —gives  itself  death  and  war 
For  peiice  doled  out  by  kings  from  its  own  store. 

Its  07un  are  all  things  between  earth  and  heaven; 
But  this  it  knows  not^  and  if  one  arise 
To  tell  this  truth,  it  kills  him  unforgiveftP 

Some  of  Campanella's  other  sonnets  are  very  strikmg, 
especially  his  impassioned  remonstrance  with  the  free 
Swiss  for  hiring  themselves  out  to  Italian  despots.  His 
religious  pieces  are  characterised  by  a  devout  tone,  and 
an  unshakeable  reliance  upon  Providence.  His  creed, 
like  Bruno's,  is  pantheistic.  The  same  is  the  case  wuth 
another  Neapolitan  thinker  of  less  importance,  GlULlO 
Cesare  Vanini  (1585-1626),  whose  misunderstood  pan- 
theism caused  him  to  be  burned  at  Toulouse,  the  most 
intolerant  city  in  France.  His  writings  are  in  Latin, 
but  so  characteristically  Itali::n  in  spirit  as  to  deserve  the 


> 


266 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE 


attention  of  Italian  students.  Out  of  many  which  he 
composed,  only  two  were  printed.  The  AmpJiithcatrc 
is,  in  the  opinion  of  Mr.  Owen  {Sceptics  of  the  Italian 
Renaissance),  decidedly  orthodox,  the  Dialogues  are  as 
decidedly  free-thinkini:^,  but  it  is  not  always  quite  clear 
how  far  the  author  is  speakinij  in  his  own  person. 

While  these  adventurous  speculators  w^ere  infusing  a 
ferment  into  the  quiescent  thought  of  their  day,  the 
edihce  of  modern  jurisprudence  was  receiving  import- 
ant additions  from  Alberico  Gentih,  a  Protestant  exile, 
happily  in  safety  at  Oxford,  wiiose  works,  nevertheless, 
belong  rather  to  moral  science  than  to  literature.  Much 
at  thf  same  time  prose  literature  was  enriched  by  the 
ethical  prohisions  of  the  most  distinguished  poet  of 
the  age.  Though  sutTering  from  delusions  sometimes 
amcunting  to  frenzy,  Tasso's  brain  was  clear  on  all 
subjects  to  which  these  delusions  did  not  extend.  He 
could  leason  powerfully  and  gracefully  on  any  question 
of  taste  ox  morals,  arrange  his  ideas  with  symmetry,  and 
support  his  views  with  appropriate  quotations.  The 
form  which  he  adopted  was  the  dialogue,  requiring  not 
only  judgment  and  memory,  but  an  accurate  discrimina- 
tion between  the  interlocutors,  which  he  always  main- 
tains. Even  the  discourse  with  his  familiar  spirit, 
although  composed  in  the  hospital  for  lunatics,  and 
containing  many  fantastic  notions,  is  consecutive  and 
rational.  It  is  perhaps  the  most  interesting  of  any, 
from  its  close  relation  to  the  writer  ;  although  almost 
as  much  may  be  said  for  the  Gonsaga,  in  which  Tasso 
celebrates  the  noble  conduct  of  his  father  in  preferring 
public  duty  to  private  interest ;  and  the  Paterfamilias ^ 
in  w^hich  he  describes  a  personal  adventiu'e.  His  other 
dialogues,  all  models  of  elegance  and  urbanity,  usually 


SARPI 


267 


treat  of  those  virtues  which  enter  most  especially  into 
the  character  of  a  gentleman,  and  his  own  bad  success 
at  courts  does  not  discourage  him  from  tendering  advice 
to  courtiers. 

A  more  powerful  intellect  if  a  less  accomplished  pen 
than  Tasso's  forms  a  connecting  link  between  the  science, 
alike  moral  and  physical,  and  the  historical  erudition  of 
the  age.  Pietro  Sarpi  (1552-1623)  would  in  our  day 
have  been  a  great  natural  philosopher  ;  and  in  fact,  not- 
withstanding his  profound  knowledge  both  of  theology 
and  canon  law,  his  reputation  long  principally  rested 
upon  his  experiments  and  researches  in  optics,  anatomy, 
and  other  natural  sciences.  Paul  the  Fifth's  aggression 
upon  Sarpi's  native  Venice  in  a  matter  of  ecclesiastical 
jurisdiction  summoned  the  modest  friar  to  public  life,  and 
after  the  triumphant  issue  of  the  controversy  in  which 
he  had  borne  the  chief  part,  he  turned  to  write  the  his- 
tory of  the  momentous  assembly  which  had  so  deeply 
affected  the  character  of  the  Church  of  Rome  for  good 
and  ill — the  Council  of  Trent.  As  a  liberal  thinker, 
w^hose  creed  approached  w^ithout  quite  attaining  the  Pro- 
testant standpoint,  he  was  naturally  hostile  to  a  convoca- 
tion which  had  stereotyped  so  many  corruptions  ;  while 
as  an  ecclesiastical  statesman  he  was  well  able  to  pene- 
trate the  worldly  motives  w^hich  had  actuated  its  con- 
veners from  first  to  last.  The  substantial  truth  of  his 
view  of  it  is  generally  admitted  ;  it  remains  a  question 
how  far  he  has  dealt  conscientiously  with  his  materials. 
The  equitable  Ranke  subjects  both  him  and  the  antago- 
nistic historian.  Cardinal  Sforza  Pallavicino,  to  a  close 
scrutiny,  and  finds  himself  unable  to  entirely  acquit  or 
condemn  either  of  them.  Both  have  frequently  displayed 
a  praiseworthy  fairness  under  strong  temptation  to  garble 


I 


68 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE 


the  documents  before  them,  but  neither  has  always  re- 
sisted the  inducement  to  magnify  or  minimise  evidence 
in  accordance  with  his  prepossessions.  Sarpi's  main 
fault  is  a  disposition  to  interpret  every  document  in  the 
light  of  his  own  times,  when  the  pretensions  of  the 
Papacy  had  greatly  risen,  and  its  spirit  had  become  more 
inflexible  and  despotic.  This,  however  it  may  detract 
from  the  value  of  his  history,  was  pardonable  in  one  who 
had  taken  a  leading  part  in  resisting  the  most  arrogant 
of  the  IVipes,  and  had  been  left  for  dead  by  assassins, 
suborned,  as  generally  believed,  by  the  Papal  court.  As 
an  advocate,  Sarpi  is  far  superior  to  his  verbose  though 
often  ingenious  antagonist ;  as  an  historian,  Ranke  places 
him  immediately  after  ^Lachiavelli.  As  a  man,  he  ap- 
pears sublimed  by  study  and  suffering  into  an  incarna- 
tion of  pure  intellect,  passionless  except  in  his  zeal  for 
truth  and  freedom  and  his  devotion  to  the  Republic. 
*'  Let  us,"  he  nobly  said  when  the  Pope  hurled  his  inter- 
dict at  Venice — "let  us  be  Venetians  first  and  Christians 
afterwards." 

The  secular  historians  of  the  period  are  very  nume- 
rous, but,  with  the  exception  of  the  Latinist  Strada,  only 
two  have  attained  a  durable  celebrity.  Enrico  Caterino 
Davila  (i  576-1631),  who  had  become  well  acquainted 
with  French  affairs  by  military  service  in  the  wars  of 
religion,  wrote  the  history  of  these  contests  from  1558 
to  1598  '*with  Venetian  sagacity  and  soldierly  brevity." 
He  wants  few  of  the  qualifications  of  an  excellent  his- 
torian, and  his  history  is  placed  not  far  below  that 
of  Guicciardini,  to  which,  indeed,  it  is  preferred  by 
Macaulay.  He  is  accused,  how^ever,  of  affecting  more 
penetration  than  he  possessed  into  the  secret  counsels 
of  princes.     Cardinal  Guido  Bentivoglio's  history  of  the 


HISTORY 


269 


i 


1 


revolt  of  the  IvOW  Countries  against  the  Spaniards  (1558- 
1609)  is  necessarily  defective  as  coming  from  the  wrong 
side.  Such  a  history  could  not  be  adequately  written 
without  sympathy  with  its  heroes  and  comprehension 
of  the  principles  involved,  neither  of  which  could  be 
expected  from  a  Papal  nuncio.  Bentivoglio  nevertheless 
w^riteswith  reasonable  htipartiality,  and  is  well  informed  on 
the  exterior  of  the  transactions  he  records,  though  utterly 
blind  to  their  real  significance*  His  style  is  most  agree- 
able. His  relation  of  his  mission  as  nuncio,  with  specu- 
lations on  the  possibility  of  suppressing  the  Reformation 
in  England  and  elsewhere,  is  perhaps  more  intrinsically 
valuable  than  his  history ;  and  his  memoirs  of  his  own 
career  at  the  Papal  court,  though  necessarily  worded 
with  great  reserve  and  caution,  are  both  entertaining 
and  instructive.  He  was  born  in  1577,  and  died  in  con- 
clave in  1644,  just  as  he  seemed  about  to  be  elected 
Pope ;  done  to  death,  Nicius  Erythra^us  affirms,  by  the 
snoring  of  the  Cardinal  in  the  next  cell,  w^hich  deprived 
him  of  sleep  for  eleven  successive  nights. 

All  the  authors  we  have  mentioned,  though  for  the 
most  part  writing  in  the  seventeenth  century,  w^ere  born 
in  the  sixteenth.  The  seventeenth  century  was  far 
advanced  towards  its  close  ere  it  had  produced  a  single 
prose-writer  of  literary  importance,  although  some  of  its 
numerous  penmen  were  interesting  for  their  characters 
or  the  circumstances  of  their  lives.  Bartoli's  History 
of  the  Society  of  Jesus  is  badly  executed,  but  import- 
ant from  its  subject.  GregoRIO  Llti  was  the  most 
representative  figure,  personifying  the  spirit  of  revolt 
against  tyranny  spiritual  and  political.  Born  at  Milan 
in  1630,  he  emigrated  to  Geneva,  became  a  Protestant, 
and,  after  a  roving  life,  eventually  settled  at  Amsterdam, 


270 


ITALIAN   LITERATURE 


where  he  died  historiographer  of  the  city  in  1701.  He 
had  already  constituted  himself  a  historiographer  and 
biographer  general,  writing  the  lives  of  kings,  princes, 
and  governors,  and  depicting  the  rise  and  fall  of  states, 
as  fast  as  bookseller  could  commission,  or  printer  put 
into  type.  Yet  he  is  not  a  hack  writer,  but  has  an  indi- 
viduality of  his  owii,  and  although  his  works  are  devoid 
of  scientific  worth,  they  served  a  useful  purpose  in  their 
day  by  asserting  freedom  of  speech.  Their  value  is  in 
proportion  to  the  degree  in  which  they  subserve  this 
purpose  ;  the  most  important,  therefore,  are  his  lives  of 
Sixtus  V.  and  of  Innocent  the  Tenth's  rapacious  and  im- 
perious niece,  Olimpia  Maldachini.  Ranke  has  clearly 
shown  that  the  former,  which  has  done  more  than  any 
other  book  to  determine  popular  opinion  regarding 
Sixtus,  is  mainly  derived  from  MS.  authorities  of  little 
value  ;  which  proves  that  Leti  did  not  invent,  but  also  that 
he  did  not  discriminate. 

Several  other  writers  approached  Leti's  type,  of  whom 
Tomasi,  the  author  of  a  very  uncritical  life  of  Ciesar 
Borgia,  may  be  taken  as  a  specimen.  Two  emigrant 
Italians,  Siri  and  Marana,  ministered  successfully  to  the 
growing  appetite  for  news  and  political  criticism,  soon 
to  engender  regular  journalism ;  the  former  by  his 
Mercurioy  published  irregularly  from  1644  to  1682  ;  the 
latter  bv  his  ingenious  Turkish  Spy,  F'errante  Pallavicino 
enlivened  the  general  dulness  by  his  Divorsio  Celeste y  a 
conception  worthy  of  Lucian,  though  not  worked  out 
as  Lucian  would  have  wrought  it,  and  other  satires 
which  eventually  cost  him  his  life.  Tkajano  Boccalini, 
nearer  the  commencement  of  the  century,  had  treated 
political  as  well  as  literary  affairs  with  freedom  in  his 
News  from  I\rniassuSy  in  which  he  professed  to  impart 


2 


SCIENCE  AND  TRAVEL 


271 


information  respecting  transactions  in  the  kingdom  of 
Apollo.  The  fiction  was  greatly  admired  in  its  day, 
translated  into  most  European  languages,  and  probably 
exerted  considerable  influence  upon  Quevedo,  Swift, 
and  Addison.  Boccalini  also  distinguished  himself  as 
a  commentator  on  Tacitus,  a  writer  much  studied  at 
this  epoch  of  general  gloom  and  discouragement,  and 
as  the  author  of  an  exposure  of  the  weakness  of  the 
Spanish  monarchy,  which  is  said  to  have  occasioned  his 
assassination. 

The  one  writer,  however,  whom  it  is  possible  to  ad- 
mire without  qualification,  and  who  has  preserved  his 
freshness  to  our  own  day,  is  a  traveller,  Pietro  della 
Valle,  who  between  1614  and  1626  explored  Turkey, 
Egypt,  Syria,  Persia,  and  part  of  India.  Apart  from  the 
prejudices  inevitable  in  his  age  and  country,  Della  Valle 
is  the  model  of  an  observant  and  sagacious  voyager,  and 
the  letters  in  which  his  observations  are  recorded  form 
most  delightful  reading.  Later  in  the  century  excellent 
letters  on  scientific  subjects  were  written  by  Magalotti  and 
Kedi.  The  illustrious  naturalists  who  in  some  measure 
redeemed  the  intellectual  barrenness  of  the  epoch,  do 
not  fall  within  the  domain  of  literary  history,  which, 
except  for  some  poets,  is  one  of  ever-augmenting  inanity 
and  insipidity,  culminating  in  absolute  sterility.  A  second 
Greece  had  been  enslaved,  but  this  time  the  fierce  con- 
queror refused  to  be  himself  led  into  captivity.  Spain 
and  the  Papacy  and  their  victim  were  equally  useless  to 
culture,  which  would  have  perished  from  the  earth  had 
it  still  been  confined  to  the  fair  land 

"  Begirt  by  70  ail  of  Alp  and  azure  sea, 
And  cloven  by  the  rlay^es  ^IpennineP 


If 


CHAPTER  XX 

THE  POETRY  OF  THE  SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY 

The  bli^^ht  that  fell  upon  Italian  literature  near  the  close 
of  the  sixteenth  century  was  in  the  main  to  be  ascribed 
to  tyranny,  temporal  and  spiritual.    Yet  there  was  another 
source  of  ill  for  which  neither  monarch  nor  priest  was 
responsible  :    this   w^as    the    malady    which    necessarily 
befalls  every  form  of  literature  and  art  when  the  bounds 
of  perfection  have  been  reached,  the  craving  to  improve 
upon  what  is  incapable  of  improvement  ;  first,  perhaps, 
distinctly  evinced  in   this   age   by  the    Spanish    bishop 
Guevara,  author  of  the  Dial  of  Princes  (1529),  who  in- 
vented  what   he    called    the   cstilo    alto^    which,    if    not 
absolutely   the    predominant,    had    by   the    end   of   the 
century  become  a  conspicuous  element  in  every  Euro- 
pean  literature.     The  true   course  would  have  been  a 
new  departure  like  that  made  by  the  Spanish  and  Dutch 
masters  when  Italian  art  had  fulhlled  its   mission  ;  but 
this  requires  not  only  genius,  but  the   concurrence  of 
favourable  social   and   political   circumstances,   without 
which  nothing  is  possible  but  servile  repetition  or  pre- 
posterous exaggeration.     Genius  born  amid  inauspicious 
surroundings  is  more  prone  to  elect  the  latter  than  the 
former  alternative,  and  the  greater  the  natural  gift,  the 
more  outrageous  the  abuse  likely  to  be  made  of  it. 

Such  epidemics  are  of  no  unfrequent  occurrence  in 


CORRUPTION  OF  TASTE 


273 


27^ 


the  history  of  every  literature ;  but  at  the  beginning 
of  the  seventeenth  century  the  plague  w^as  common 
to  all,  and  it  w^as  but  natural  that  none  should  suffer 
so  severely  as  that  which  had  hitherto  been  the  model 
of  good  taste.  There  seems  no  good  reason  for 
attributing  this  particular  affliction  to  Spanish  influence. 
Spain  had  her  Gongora,  as  Italy  her  Marini,  but  there 
is  no  evidence  that  either  taught  the  other.  It  was 
a  prevalent  malady,  which  left  Italian  prose  by  no  means 
unaffected.  Cardinal  Bentivoglio,  himself  a  model  of 
pure  and  simple  composition  in  prose,  though  in  verse 
an  admirer  of  Marini,  says  of  the  poet  Ciampoli,  redactor 
of  briefs  under  Clement  VIII.,  that  his  style  w^ould  have 
been  in  place  if  he  had  been  inditing  an  heroic  poem. 
Ciampoli's  poetry  was  not  likely  to  be  more  chastened 
than  his  prose  ;  and  in  truth  the  determination  to  dazzle 
and  astonish  at  any  cost  was  inevitably  most  conspicuous 
in  the  branch  of  literature  where  a  divine  transport,  when 
real  and  not  simulated,  is  rightly  held  to  excuse  many 
lapses  from  absolute  purity  of  dictioii ;  and  where,  as 
was  also  to  be  expected,  the  arch  offender  was  a  man  of 
genuine  gifts,  who  wath  more  natural  refinement  and 
moral  earnestness  might  have  regenerated  the  literature 
'of  his  country,  but  whose  false  brilliancy  only  served  to 
lure  it  further  astray. 

It  is  the  best  apology  of  Giovanni  Battista  Marini 
(1569-1625)  to  have  been  born  a  Neapolitan.  From 
the  days  of  Statins  till  now,  these  vehement  children  of 
the  South  have  been  great  improvisers.  Could  wc  look 
upon  Marini  in  this  light,  we  should  find  little  but  his 
voluptuousness  to  censure,  and  should  bj  compelled  to 
admire  him  in  some  measure  as  a  remarkable  phenome- 
non, only  lamenting  that  his  contemporaries  should  have 


Ill 


It  I 


274 


ITALIAN   LITERATURE 


mistaken  a  lusiis  natures  for  an  inspired  genius,  a  calcu- 
1  iting  boy  for  a  Newton  or  a  Galileo.  It  might  indeed 
have  been  better  for  Mariiii  if  lie  had  trusted  more  to  his 
natural  facuUy  for  improvisation.  "His  first  strokes," 
says  Settembrini,  "are  sometimes  beautiful,  and  if  he 
left  them  as  they  were  all  would  be  well,  but  he  touches 
and  retouches  until  they  are  quite  blurred."  This  refers 
to  the  descriptions  in  his  Adone  (1623),  a  poem  which 
is  nothing  but  description.  Adonis  does  nothing,  but  is 
carried  involuntarily  through  a  series  of  situations  con- 
trived to  display  the  pictorial  power  of  the  poet.  The 
showman  makes  the  puppet  dance,  and  the  puppet 
returns  the  compliment.  There  is  no  story,  no  moral, 
no  character,  no  inner  unity,  nothing  but  forty-five 
thousand  lines  of  word-painting,  rich  and  brilliant 
indeed,  but  commonplace  in  so  far  as  the  port  sees 
nothing  invisible  to  ordinary  eyes,  and  evinces  no  ori- 
ginality in  his  manner  of  regarding  man  and  nature. 

Such  merely  verbal  beauty  must  inevitably  satiate, 
and  Marini  has  experienced  more  neglect,  and  even 
contempt,  than  many  men  of  far  inferior  faculty.  In  his 
own  day  he  carried  all  before  him,  and  was  even  more 
admired  in  France  than  in  Italy.  It  is  at  least  to  his 
credit  not  to  have  undertaken  his  gorgeous  but  empty 
Adonc  until  he  had  convinced  himself  of  his  inability 
to  vie  with  Tasso  in  a  nobler  form  of  epic.  He  also 
composed  one  really  dignified  poem  on  the  deplorable 
condition  of  Italy  (attributed,  however,  by  many  to 
Fulvio  Testi),  and  poured  forth  a  flood  of  idyllic  and 
bucolic,  marine,  erotic,  and  lyrical  poetry,  not  devoid  of 
striking  beauties,  but  so  disfigured  by  conceits  as  to  be 
necessarily  condemned  to  oblivion  upon  the  revival  of  a 
purer  taste.     In  some  respects  he  might  be  compared  to 


MARINI 


275 


the  Cowleys  and  Crashaws  of  Charles  the  First's  time  ;. 
but  he  is  physical,  while  they  are  metaphysical  ;  his  con- 
ceits are  less  far-fetched  and  ingenious  than  theirs,  and 
few  of  them  either  could  or  would  have  produced  his 
licentious,  but,  in  an  artistic  point  of  view,  admirable 
Pastorella,  Marini's  influence  on  the  contemporary 
poetry  of  his  own  country  was  very  great ;  but  the 
two  or  three  men  of  genius  remained  unaffected  by 
him,  and  the  names  of  his  multitudinous  imitators  are 
not  worth  preserving.  His  life,  though  chequered  by 
scrapes  and  quarrels,  was  on  the  whole  prosperous, 
and  the  patronage  of  the  French  court  made  him 
independent  of  the  petty  princes  of  Italy.  He  had 
bitter  enemies  in  Gasparo  Murtola,  a  poet  who  would 
be  forgotten  but  for  his  and  Marini's  mutual  lampoons, 
and  Tommaso  Stigliani,  a  more  considerable  personage, 
who  had  enjoyed  the  great  honour  of  being  run  through 
the  body  by  the  historian  Davila,  and  whose  early  pro- 
mise had  drawn  a  sonnet  from  Tasso,  remarkable  for  the 
hint  it  affords  that  Tasso  himself  had  projected  an  epic 
upon  Columbus  : 

"  Thy  song  Orphean^  able  io  placate 

The  IStygiaji  thrones^  and  wailijig  shades  appease^ 

Stigliany  doth  so  upon  my  spirit  seize. 
Mine  own  in  its  cojnpare  I  humbly  rate. 
And  if  like  Autumn  wilh  thy  April  mate 

As  promised  by  such  harbingers  as  these^ 

Thou'' It  pass  the  pillared  bounds  of  Hercules, 
And  safe  to  utmost  Thule  navigate. 
Nou\  parted  fom  the  croiud,  intrepid  go^ 

Scaling  steep  Helicon^  thy  high  desire^ 

No  more  in  dread  to  wander  to  and  fro. 
There  swaying  from  a  cypress  hangs  my  lyre; 

Salute  it  in  my  name^  and  bid  it  know 

'I  hat  Time  and  Fortune  for  my  ill  conspire^ 


276 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE 


CHIABRERA 


277 


The  peculiar  appropriateness  of  Tasso's  compliment 
arises  from  the  fact  that  Stigliani  was  then  engaged  upon 
an  epic  on  the  discovery  of  America,  which  was  far  from 
justifying  Torquato's  predictions. 

The  style  of  Marini,  however,  was  not  allowed  to  bear 
unchallenged  sway.  The  first  place  in  lyrical  poetry  w^as 
boldly  claimed  by,  and  by  many  accorded  to,  another  bard, 
whose  personal  and  poetical  idiosyncrasies  stood  in  strong 
contrast  to  the  Neapolitan's.  Gabriello  Chiabrera 
(155 2-1 637),  a  native  of  Savona,  w^as  a  man  of  antique 
mould,  haughty,  aspiring,  and  self-sufticing.  His  youth 
was  spent  at  Rome.  Jealous  of  his  honour,  he  found 
himself,  as  he  tells  us  in  his  autobiography,  necessitated 
to  w^ash  out  sundry  affronts  in  blood,  which  he  accom- 
plished to  his  satisfaction,  but  whether  in  single  combat 
or  in  other  fashion  he  does  not  explicitly  say.  Retired 
for  safety  to  his  native  Ligurian  town,  and  digesting  the 
large  assortment  of  ideas  which  he  had  brought  away 
with  him  from  the  literary  circles  of  Rome,  he  hit  upon 
the  great  discovery  of  his  life,  that  the  Italian  canzone 
needed  to  be  reformed  upon  a  Greek  model.  It  really 
was  a  discovery  which  changed  the  w^hole  course  of  his 
literary  activity — of  no  such  importance  as  that  of  the 
need  of  a  closer  observation  of  nature  which  Wordsworth 
deduced  from  noticing  the  blackness  of  a  leaf  outlined 
against  a  sunny  sky,  but  still  a  genuine  discovery.  Its 
value  lay  not  so  much  in  its  abstract  worth  or  in  any  real 
assimilation  of  the  spirit  of  Greek  poetry  by  Chiabrera, 
but  in  an  endeavour  after  a  high  standard,  wiiich,  even 
when  misdirected,  proved  the  best  corrective  of  the 
inanity  and  effeminacy  to  which  the  Italian  canzone 
had  become  prone. 

Chiabrera  might  be  somewhat  conventional  in  style 


and  barren  in  thought :  he  was  afl  the  more  a  precious 
antidote  to  the  dissolute  lusciousress  of  a  Marini,  and 
his  example  exercised  a  salutary  influence  throughout 
the  whole  of  the  seventeenth  century.  So  late  as  1740, 
Spence,  travelling  in  Italy,  was  told  that  the  Italian 
lyrical  poets  of  the  day  were  divisible  into  Petrarchists 
and  Chiabrerists.  The  popularity  of  so  bold  an  inno- 
vator, and  the  honours  and  distinctions  showered  upon 
him  by  princes  and  potentates,  are  creditable  to  the 
age.  He  wrote  his  brief  autobiography  at  eighty,  and 
died  at  eighty-five,  exulting  to  the  last  in  his  sanity  of 
mind  and  body  ;  distinguished  also,  according  to  Rossi 
(Nicius  Erythra^us),  as  the  ugliest  of  the  poets:  "  Quis 
enim  qui  ejus  faciem  aspexisset,  arbitiatus  esset,  ex 
illius  ore  subnigro,  tetrico,  invenusto,  tam  candidula, 
tam  vinula,  tam  venustula  carmina  posse  prodere  ?"  A 
man  congenial  to  Wordsworth,  who  has  translated  some 
of  his  stately  metrical  epitaphs  with  corresponding 
dignity.^  He  has  many  traits  of  those  great  modern 
masters  of  form.  Lander  and  Platen,  but,  though  no 
mean  sculptor  of  speech,  falls  as  much  behind  them  in 
perfection  of  classic  mould  as  he  surpasses  them  in 
productiveness. 

Chiabrera  wTote  several  epics,  dramas,  poems  on 
sacred  history,  and  other  pieces,  and  the  mass  of  his 
poetry  is  of  formidable  extent  ;  but  apart  from  his 
Scrmoni,  felicitous  imitations  of  Horace,  he  lives  solely 
by  his  lyrics.  These  fall  into  two  classes,  which  he 
would   liave    described    as    Pindaric    and   Anacreontic. 

1  It  is  not  iniprobal)le  that  the  "three  feet  long  and  two  feet  wide,"  wliich 
brought  such  ridicule  upon  Wordsworth,  may  be  a  reminiscence  of  Chiabrera's 
description  of  his  house,  "  Di  cui  I'ampiezza  venticinque  braccia  Forse  con- 
sume/* 

19 


/f 


278 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE 


The  former  are  set  compositions  of  great  pomp  and 
magniticence  ;  not  lik^  Marini's  poems,  depending  upon 
verbal  beauty  alone,  but  upon  a  real  if  formal  grandeur 
of  style.  They  are  less  like  the  notes  of  Apollo's  lyre 
than  orchestras  of  all  sorts  of  instruments,  *' tiute,  violin, 
bassoon,"  but  more  particularly  bassoon.  They  are 
splendidly  sonorous,  and  exhibit  great  art  in  heightening 
ordinary  ideas  by  magnificent  diction.  Of  the  wild,  un- 
tutored graces  of  the  woods  and  fields  they  have  abso- 
lutely nothing  ;  their  sphere  is  tlie  court,  save  for  the 
feeling  which  Chial>rera,  as  becomes  a  Ligurian,  occa- 
sionally manifests  for  the  sea  ;  and  the  ideas  are  seldom 
absolutely  novel,  though  they  often  seem  so.  But  there 
is  true  elevation  of  thought  and  majesty  of  diction  :  a 
lyrical  afflatus  seems  to  descend  upon  the  poet  and  whirl 
him  on,  sped,  in  the  absence  of  a  really  inspiring  subject, 
by  his  own  excitement,  as  a  courser  is  urged  along  by 
the  thunder  of  his  own  hoofs.  Yet  there  is  no  factitious 
emotion,  the  theme  is  really  for  the  moment  everything 
to  the  poet,  while  he  remains  sufficiently  master  of  him- 
self to  turn  every  strong  point  to  the  best  account. 

Like  the  surviving  lyrics  of  his  model  Pindar,  his  odes 
are  usually  addressed  to  particular  persons  or  prompted 
by  some  event.  Among  the  best  are  the  long  series  he 
poured  forth  on  occasion  of  the  trifling  victories  gained 
by  the  Italian  galleys  over  the  Turks,  which  prove  how 
fine  a  patriotic  poet  he  might  have  been  if  his  age  had 
given  him  anything  blotter  to  celebrate.  His  Anacreontics 
precisely  correspond  to  his  Pindarics,  brilliant  eifusions 
with  more  glitter  than  glow,  but  ingenious,  felicitous, 
and  transcending  mere  rhetoric  by  the  exquisite  music 
of  the  versification.  Chiabrera  is  not  an  Italian  Pindar 
or  Anacreon,  and  his  natural  gift  for  poetry  was  inferior 


TEST! 


279 


to  Marini's;  but  he  is  entitled  to  the  great  honour  of 
having  barred  out  by  a  strong  dike  the  flood  of  false 
taste,  and  having  conferred  dignity  upon  a  most  un pro- 
pitious age  of  Italian  literature. 

Chiabrera's  mantle  fell  upon  Count  FuLVio  Testi 
(1593-1646),  in  some  respects  a  more  genuine  poet, 
though  his  inferior  in  splendour  of  language  and  har- 
mony of  versification,  and  like  him  infertile  in  ideas 
and  contracted  in  his  outlook  upon  the  w^orld.  Testi 
was  nevertheless  an  interesting  personage,  picturesque 
in  the  style  of  Rembrandt  or  Caravaggio,  an  unquiet 
spirit,  haughty,  moody,  vindictive.  Under  a  free  govern- 
ment he  might  have  been  a  great  citizen,  but  the  circum- 
stances of  his  age  left  him  no  other  sphere  than  court 
or  diplomatic  employment.  He  was  not  the  man  to 
run  easily  in  harness,  and  spent  his  life  in  losing  and 
regaining  the  favour  of  the  Este  princes,  now  come  down 
to  be  Dukes  of  Modena,  but  still  with  places  and  pensions 
in  their  gift,  and  died  in  prison,  just  as,  if  the  Duke  may 
be  believed,  he  was  on  the  point  of  being  released. 
If  so,  the  cause  of  his  disgrace  was  probably  nothing 
graver  than  his  wish  to  quit  the  Duke's  service.  In  any 
case,  the  tale  of  his  having  been  secretly  decapitated  to 
appease  the  resentment  of  Cardinal  Antonio  Barberini, 
satirised  in  his  famous  canzone,  Ruscelletto  orgoglioso^ 
seems  to  be  a  mere  legend. 

This  canzone  is  undoubtedly  one  of  the  finest  lyrics 
in  the  Italian  language,  magnificent  alike  in  its  descrip- 
tion of  the  swollen  rivulet  and  in  its  application  to  the 
inflated  upstart.  The  rest  of  Testi's  better  composi- 
tions resemble  it ;  they  are  odes  stately  in  diction  and 
sonorous  in  versification,  fine  examples  of  the  grand 
style  in  poetry,  and  proving  what  dignity  of  style  can 


28o  ITALIAN   LITERATURE 

effect  even  without  any  considerable  opulence  or  striking 
novelty  of  thought.  They  are  usually  on  subjects  per- 
sonal to  himself,  sometimes  depicting  the  miseries  of 
court  life  with  the  feeling  that  comes  from  experience, 
sometimes  affecting  a  philosophical  tranquillity  to  which 
he  was  really  a  stranger.  One  stands  out  from  the  rest, 
the  poem  which  he  addressed  in  his  youth  to  the  Duke 
of  Savoy,  exhorting  him  to  deliver  Italy  from  the  Spaniards. 
Testi  was  not  alone  in  the  prophetic  foresight  that  the 
redemption  of  Italy  would  come  from  Savoy.  Cam- 
panella,  Chiabrera,  and  others  of  the  best  Italians  of  the 
day  shared  it  with  him,  but  no  other  has  given  it  such 
direct  and  eloquent  expression.  The  genius  of  Italy 
appears  in  vision  to  the  poet,  enumerates  her  wrongs, 
denounces  her  oppressor,  and  calls  for  vengeance  in  a 
series  of  most  animated  octaves,  equally  impressive  and 

persuasive. 

Marini's  school  continued  to  dominate  literary  circles, 
although  Rossi  assures  us  that  Testi's  simplicity  was 
more  acceptable  to  readers  at  large.  "The  sun,"  says 
Vernon  Lee,  "cooled  itself  in  the  waters  of  rivers  which 
were  on  fire  ;  the  celestial  sieve,  resplendent  with  shin- 
ing holes,  was  swept  by  the  bristly  back  of  the  Apen- 
nines ;  love  was  an  infernal  heaven  and  a  celestial  hell, 
it  was  burning  ice  and  freezing  fire,  and  was  inspired 
by  ladies  made  up  entirely  of  coral,  gold  thread,  lilies, 
roses,  and  ivory,  on  whose  lips  sat  Cupids  shooting 
arrows  which  were  snakes."  Poetry  worthy  of  the 
name  seemed  extinct  after  Testi's  death,  and  the  litera- 
ture of  England  being  then  unknown  beyond  her  own 
borders,  the  sceptre  over  every  department  of  intel- 
lectual activity  except  science  passed  into  the  hand  of 
France.     After  a  while,  however,  signs  of  revival  became 


RED! 


281 


apparent.  The  writers  who  restored  to  Italy  some 
share  of  her  ancient  glory  were  all  strongly  influenced 
by  Chiabrera. 

The  first  of  these  in  order  of  time  was  a  man  who 
would  have  been  famous  if  he  had  never  written  a 
verse,  FRANCESCO  Redi  (1626-99),  the  illustrious  phy- 
sician and  naturalist.  One  would  scarcely  have  expected 
this  eager  scrutiniser  of  nature  to  have  come  forward  as 
a  Bacchanalian  laureate  ;  but  certain  it  is  that,  neglect- 
ing the  more  imposing  side  of  Chiabrera's  poetical  work, 
Redi  applied  himself  to  develop  the  dithyramb  in  its 
strict  sense  of  a  Bacchic  song.  Chiabrera  had  given 
excellent  examples  of  this  on  a  small  scale  ;  but  Redi 
completely  distanced  him  with  his  Bacchus  in  Tuscany^ 
where  the  jolly  god,  returned  from  his  Indian  con- 
quest, for  the  benefit  of  Ariadne  passes  in  review  liter- 
ally and  figuratively  all  the  wines  of  Tuscany,  with 
such  consequences  as  is  reasonable  to  expect.  The 
literary  character  of  the  piece  cannot  be  better  described 
than  by  Salfi,  the  continuator  of  Ginguene,  as  "con- 
sisting in  the  enthusiasm  which  passes  rapidly  from 
one  theme  to  another,  and,  seeming  to  say  nothing  but 
what  it  chooses,  says,  in  effect,  nothing  but  what  it 
should."  Dryden  evidently  had  it  in  mind  when  he 
wrote  Alexanders  Feast,  and  the  difficulties  of  translation 
have  been  surprisingly  overcome  by  Leigh  Hunt.  Redi's 
sonnets  are  also  remarkable,  occasionally  tame  in  subject 
or  disfigured  by  conceits,  but  in  general  nobly  thought 
and  nobly  expressed,  with  a  strong  Platonic  element. 
They  nearly  all  relate  to  Love,  and  fall  into  two  well- 
marked  divisions,  one  upbraiding  him  as  the  source  of 
perpetual  torment,  the  other  celebrating  him  as  the 
symbol    of    Divinity,    and    the    chief    agent    by    which 


282 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE 


man  is  raised  above  himself.  The  latter  thought  has 
seldom  been  more  finely  expressed  than  in  the  fol- 
lowing pair  of  sonnets,  the  first  of  which  is  translated 
by  Mr.  Gosse : 

"  L(n>e  is  the  Minstrel;  for  in  GocTs  own  sights 

The  master  of  all  melody^  he  stands^ 

And  holds  a  golden  rebeck  in  his  hands y 
And  leads  the  chorus  of  the  saints  in  light; 
But  e%fer  and  anon  those  chambers  bright 

Detain  him  not,  for  do%vn  to  these  low  lands 

He  flies,  and  spreads  his  musical  commands^ 
And  teaches  men  some  fresh  divine  delight. 
For  with  his  boii'  he  strikes  a  single  chord 

Across  a  soul,  and  i^'ukes  in  it  desire 

To  grow  more  pure  and  lovely,  and  aspire 
To  that  ethereal  country  where,  outpoured 
From  myriad  stars  that  stand  before  the  Lord,  . 

Love's  harmonies  are  like  aflame  offireP 

**  If  L  am  aught,  it  is  Love's  miracle. 

He  to  rough  mass  gave  shape  with  forming  file ; 
He,  as  youth  bloomed  in  April's  sunny  smile. 

Came  through  the  eyes  within  the  heart  to  dwell.  • 

My  Lord  and  Master  he,  who  bade  expel 
All  sordid  thought  and  apprehension  vile. 
Sweetness  best<m'ed  on  rude  u n mellowed  sty ICy 

And  melody  that  shall  be  memorable. 

My  spirit  at  his  call  her  pinions  bent 

To  winf  the  Jieavenly  realm  where  Time  is  not;) 
From  star  to  star  he  beckoned,  and  she  went : 

By  him  my  heart  hath  chosen  for  her  lot 

True  honour  whose  renown  shall  ne'er  be  spent; 
Jf  aught  my  soul  hath  borne,  Uwas  he  begot P 

Poets  :irc  often  found  to  be  gregarious.  Redi  had  two 
chief  friends  at  the  Tuscan  court— Menzini,  of  whom  we 
shall  have  to  speak,  and  Filicaja,  who  in  an  unpoetical 
at!e  raised  the  Italian  lyric  to  as  great  a  height  as  it  had 


FILICAJA 


283 


ever  attained  in  the  Cinque  Cento.  ViNCENZO  Filicaja 
(1642-1707)  is  one  of  the  highest  examples  the  world 
has  seen  of  the  academical  poet,  the  man  who  is  rarely 
hurried  away  by  the  god,  but  who  seriously  and  per- 
sevci  ingly  follows  poetry  as  an  art,  in  whose  breast  the 
sacred  fire  is  always  burning,  but  always  needing  to  be 
stirred  up.  A  grave,  just  magistrate,  and  a  deeply  re- 
ligious man,  he  was  well  constituted  to  sing  events  of 
such  importance  to  the  Christian  commonwealth  as  the 
deliverance  of  Vienna  by  Sobieski,  and,  from  his  point 
of  view,  the  conversion  of  Queen  Christina.  Tender, 
affectionate,  and  carrying  with  him  the  life-long  wound 
of  an  unfortunate  passion,  he  was  no  less  qualified  to 
be  the  laureate  of  domestic  sorrow,  while  his  elevation 
of  mind  lent  uncommon  dignity  to  many  of  his  occa- 
sional pieces,  especially  his  sonnets.  If  only  his  scrolls 
smelt  less  of  the  lamp  he  might  deserve  Macaulay's 
exaggerated  praise  as  the  greatest  lyrist  of  modern 
times,  supposing  this  expression  to  denote  the  seven- 
teenth and  eighteenth  centuries. 

The  great  qualities  of  Filicaja  are  majesty  and  tender- 
ness. The  lion  bene  conveniunt  nee  in  una  scde  niorantur 
inafcstas  et  amor  only  applies  to  him  in  so  far  as  these 
gifts,  though  dwelling  in  the  same  breast,  are  not  often 
found  united  in  the  same  poem.  His  canzoni  possess 
amplitude  of  form  and  pomp  of  diction,  seldom  or 
never  bombastic,  or  transgressing  the  limits  of  good 
taste.  From  this  the  poet  was  preserved  by  his  deep 
seriousness,  to  which  anything  like  tinsel  was  utterly 
abhorrent.  He  strongly  felt  the  obligation  to  exert  his 
utmost  strength  when  writing  on  an  important  theme, 
as  he  usually  did  when  he  wrote  at  all.  It  is  his  manner 
to  approach  his   subject    from    a   variety  of   sides,  and 


284 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE 


make  each  the  topic  of  a  separate  poem.  Thus  his 
great  cycle  of  odes  on  the  rehef  of  Vienna,  perhaps 
the  finest  of  his  works,  consists  of  six  separate  pro- 
ductions, constituting  a  grand  whole,  but  any  one  of 
which  could  have  stood  perfectly  well  by  itself.  Such 
a  method  of  composition  implies  great  deliberation,  and 
Filicaja  rarely  conveys  the  impression  of  a  seer  or  a 
bard.  His  thoughts  are  sometimes  trite,  but  the  feel- 
ing which  gives  them  birth  is  always  deep  and  sincere. 
Tlie  same  is  true  of  the  best  of  his  numerous  sonnets, 
some  of  which  rise  to  grandeur.  By  far  the  finest  is  the 
famous  Italia^  Italia,  a  cui  fcb  la  sorte^  which  is  to  Italian 
literature  what  Milton's  sonnet  on  the  massacre  of  the 
Vaudois  is  to  EngHsh  : 


(( 


Italia^  O  Italia^  doomed  to  wear 

The  fatal  ivrcatk  of  loveliness^  and  so 
The  record  of  itlimitable  luoe 

Branded  for  ever  on  thy  brow  to  bear  ! 

Would  that  less  beauty  or  more  vigour  were 
Thy  heritage  !  that  they  who  madly  glow 
I' or  that  li'hich  their  own  fury  layeth  low. 

More  terrible  might  find  thee  ^  or  less  fair  I 

Not  from  thine  Alpine  rampart  should  the  horde 
Of  spoilers  then  descend^  or  crimson  stain 
Of  rolling  Po  quench  thirst  of  Gallic  steed: 

Nor  should' St  thou,  girded  with  another's  sword^ 
Smite  7vith  a  foreign  arm,  enslavement's  chain  ^ 
Victor  or  vanquished^  equally  thy  meed" 


Filicaja,  however,  did  not  always  compose  in  this 
majestic  style.  He  could  be  light  and  playful.  Some 
of  his  sonnets,  like  those  of  Tansillo  and  other  writers 
of  the  Cinque  Cento,  strongly  bring  out  the  character- 
istic distinction  between  the  Italian  and  the  English 
sonnet,  which  is  entirely  in  favour  of  the  former.    The 


GUIDI  :  MENZINI 


285 


English  sonnet,  even  when  dealing  with  a  light  theme, 
is  apt  to  be  ponderous.  The  Italian,  even  when  serious, 
is  tuneful,  and  buoyant  on  the  wing. 

Filicaja  fixed  the  model  of  the  Italian  canzone  for  a 
long  time,  for  the  innovations  of  his  successor  Ales- 
SANDRO  GuiDl  (1650-1712),  a  protege  of  Queen  Christina, 
and  one  of  the  founders  of  the  "Arcadia,"  had  more 
admirers  than  imitators.  They  consisted  in  the  irregu- 
larity and  sometimes  the  disuse  of  rhyme,  interesting  as 
experiments,  but  unfavourable  to  the  stately  march  of 
the  most  dignified  form  of  lyrical  composition.  Guidi 
was  nevertheless  a  fine  poet,  and  manifests  a  peculiar 
fire  and  dignity  when  hymning  the  glories  and  tragedies 
of  Rome.  He  must  have  been  a  very  ermine  among 
authors,  if  it  be  true  that  he  died  of  disgust  at  a  misprint 
in  one  of  his  books. 

Three  other  poets  who  did  not  aspire  to  the  elevation 
of  Filicaja  and  Guidi,  aided  to  re-enthrone  sound  taste, 
and  did  honour  to  the  end  of  the  seventeenth  century. 
Benedetto  Menzini  (1646-1704),  another  protege  of 
Christina's,  and  in  some  sense  a  pupil  of  Redi,  WTote 
caustic  satires,  graceful  Anacreontics,  respectable  odes, 
and  an  Art  of  Poetry  as  sound  as  could  be  expected 
from  one  whose  knowledge  of  modern  literature  was 
so  limited.  To  see,  more  than  half  a  century  after 
Shakespeare,  the  Solimano  and  the  Torrismondo  pro- 
pounded as  the  highest  modern  examples  of  tragic 
art  certainly  inspires  cogitation  touching  the  service- 
ableness  of  the  light  within,  supposing  that  light  to  be 
darkness.  Within  his  limits,  however,  Menzini  is  most 
judicious,  and  his  own  compositions  do  credit  to  his 
maxims  ;  witness  the  following  keen  satiric  apologue  in 
sonnet  form  : 


286  ITALIAN   LITERATURE 

"  A  tender  slip  of  laurel  I  of  late 

Implanted  in  fair  soil^  and  Heaven  besought 
To  prosper  till  it  might,  to  fulness  brought^ 

Enshade  the  brow  august  of  Laureate ; 

And  Zephyrus  to  boot  did  supplicate 

To  fan  with  soothing  wing,  lest  harm  in  aught 
By  bitter  breath  of  Boreas  should  be  wrought. 

Loosed  from  the  cave  where  JEolus  holds  state. 

Tardy  and  difficult,  full  well  L  know. 
The  up7vard  striving  of  A  po  I  Ids  spray, 
Matched  with  frail  growths  that  lightly  come  and  go; 

Yet  chide  we  not  the  fortunate  delay, 
If  when  the  bay  is  worthy  of  the  brow, 
Brow  there  be  also  worthy  of  the  bay" 

Carlo  Maria  Maggi  (1630-99),  without  soaring  high, 
did  excellent  work  in  ode,  sonnet,  and  madrigal.  Fran- 
cesco Lemene  (1634-1704)  was  more  ambitious,  hut  his 
tumid  religious  poetry  has  fallen  into  oblivion,  and  he 
only  lives  by  his  pretty  Anacreontics. 

As  the  great  questions  which  had  divided  the  preced- 
ing century  became  settled,  and  political  interests  nar- 
rowed more  and  more,  the  spirit  of  the  age  naturally 
turned  to  satire.  Menzini  is  its  best  satirist ;  but  at 
an  earlier  period  Chiabrera,  Soldani,  and  the  impetuous 
and  unequal  Salvator  Rosa  had  exercised  themselves 
in  this  department  of  literature,  and  the  century's  last 
literary  sensation  was  the  successive  appearance  of  the 
Latin  satires  of  Sergardi  (Sectanus),  models  of  composi- 
tion, which  for  nearly  a  decade  kept  the  reading  por- 
tion of  the  Roman  public  in  an  uproar.  It  might  iiave 
been  thought  that  comedy  would  have  flourished,  but 
some  promising  begiiuiings  died  away,  wiiile  opera 
progressed  steadily.  Tragedies  continued  to  be  written 
on  the  classical  system,  but  there  w^as  no  power  to 
breathe  life   into  the  old    forms,  unless  the   great  tem- 


FICTION 


287 


porary  success  of  Prospero  Bonarelli's  SolimanOy  which 
we  have  seen  Menzini  parallel  with  Tasso's  Torrisntondo^ 
may  be  taken  to  denote  an  exception.     The  Phillis  of 
Scyros  of   Bonarelli's  brother  Giudubaldo  was  the  one 
achievement    in    pastoral    drama.      The    novelette    lan- 
guished, and  chivalric  fiction  had  but   one   representa- 
tive   in    Italy,    the    Caloandro    of    Giuseppe    Ambrogio 
Marini,  an  excellent  romance  nevertheless,  ending  with 
live  marriages,  where  monarchs  and  warriors  play  the 
part  of  the  antiquated  knights-errant,  and  so  superior 
in    sanity  to   the    unwieldy  fictions   of   the   Clelie   type 
that    Caylus  thought   it  worth   translating   into    French 
in  the  following  century.     The  Eudemia  of  J.  V.  Rossi 
(Nicius   Erythrasus),   in    Latin,   is    a   good   specimen    of 
the    Argenis    class    of    romances.      The   same   author's 
I^inacotheca,  in  three  parts,  a  most  entertaining  repertory 
of  biographies,  chiefly  more  or  less  literary,  of  the  early 
part  of  the  century,  is  further  remarkable  as  indicative  of 
a  perception  of  the  growing  needs  of  the  world,  and  an 
unconscious  foreshadowing  of  a  culture  as  yet  afar  off. 
And  this    is   broadly  the  character   of   the  seventeenth 
century  in  Italy,  a  poor  and  barren  time  if  paralleled 
with  the  past,  but   pregnant  with   the   seeds  of   future 
harvests,  repressed  for  a  time  by  ungenial  circumstances. 
Comparing  the  Italian  literature  of  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury with  that  of  England  and  France,  we  see  that  all 
ran  through  substantially  the  same  stages,  but  that,  while 
these  are  vigorous  alike    in   their  aberrations  and  their 
reforms,  Italian  literature  is  languid  in  both,  a  circum- 
stance sufficiently  accounted  for  by  its  absolute  enslave- 
ment, and  their  comparative  freedom. 


CHAPTER  XXI 

THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY 

The  eighteenth  century  was  a  period  of  recovery  for 
Italy.  The  ancient  lustre  of  literature,  indeed,  was  bu'. 
feebly  rekindled  ;  and  fine  art,  with  the  exception  of 
music,  which  rose  to  unexampled  heights,  sank  lower 
and  lower.  But  an  invigorating  breath  pervaded  the 
nation  ;  men  wrote  and  thought  in  comparative  free- 
dom ;  and  if  pedantry  and  frivolity  still  reigned  in  many 
quarters,  the  sway  of  outrageous  bad  taste  had  departed. 
Political  and  spiritual  tyranny  were  still  enthroned,  and 
religion  and  politics  could  only  be  handled  with  great 
caution  ;  yet  reform  was  more  hardy  and  oppression  less 
assured  than  of  yore.  Italy  rose  slowly  from  her  abase- 
ment, like  a  trodden  flower  resuming  il3  erect  attitude, 
bruised  but  not  crushed,  feeble  but  not  inanimate,  obey- 
ing a  natural  impulse  by  which  she  could  not  fail  to  right 
herself  in  time. 

The  chief  cause  of  Italian  regeneration,  so  far  as 
peculiar  to  the  country,  and  unconnected  with  that 
general  movement  towards  liberty  and  toleration  which, 
originating  in  England,  was  gradually  transforming 
Europe,  w^as  the  disappearance  of  the  Spanish  dominion, 
which  had  for  two  centuries  inflicted  every  political  and 
spiritual  evil  upon  Italy  without  conferring  a  single  bene- 
tit  in  return.      A  Spanish   dynasty  did,  indeed,  in   1734 


TENDENCIES  OF  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY     289 

le-cstablish  itself  in  the  Two  Sicilies,  but  no  longer  a 
dynasty  of  viceroys  ;  it  regarded  itself  as  Italian,  and 
W71S  served  by  Italian  administrators.  Lombardy  slum- 
bered under  the  comparatively  benign  sway  of  Austri :i. 
There  was  as  yet  little  patriotic  resentment  against  foreign 
domination  as  such  ;  Austria  was  inert  and  unaggressive, 
and  Italy's  princes  and  people  felt  conscious  of  a  great 
deliverance.  It  was  no  time  for  violent  intellectual  exer- 
cise, but  for  quiet  and  gradual  revival.  The  convalescing 
country  could  not  be  expected  to  vie  with  the  intellectu:il 
development  of  England  and  France,  but  her  progress 
was  in  the  same  direction.  Within  the  Alps,  as  beyond 
them,  the  age,  save  in  music,  was  unimaginative.  It 
created  little,  but  brought  much  to  light.  Its  most 
potent  intellects,  the  Kants,  Lessings,  Diderots,  Butlers, 
Humes,  were  turned  towards  criticism  or  moral  science. 
So  it  was  in  Italy,  where  the  current  of  the  most  power- 
ful thought  ran  strongly  in  the  direction  of  history  and 
jurisprudence,  state  reform  and  public  economy.  Vico, 
Giannone,  Beccaria,  Filangieri,  Genovesi,  Galiani  are  its 
representatives.  Closely  allied  to  these,  but  devoid  of 
their  originality,  are  the  investigators  of  the  past  and 
the  critical  lawgivers  of  their  own  day,  the  Muratoris, 
Crescimbenis,  Maffeis,  Mazzuchellis,  and  Tiraboschis. 
Nor  must  the  academical  movement  be  left  out  of  sight, 
which,  if  impotent  to  create  good  literature,  at  all  events 
kept  its  traditions  alive.  Lastly,  the  development  of 
music  reacted  on  the  lyrical  drama,  which  kindled  the 
other  branches  of  the  dramatic  art  into  activity,  and 
for  a  time  made  the  Italian  drama,  tragic,  comic,  and 
operatic,  the  most  interesting  in  Europe. 

Among   the   philosophical  writers  who   conferred   so 
much  distinction  upon  Italy  in  the  eighteenth  century, 


290 


ITALIAN   LITERATURE 


the  first,  both  in  order  of  time  and  of  importance,  was 
GiovAXXi  Battista  Vico,  a  NeapoHtan  (1668-1744). 
Vico's  hfe  was  uneventful.  He  devoted  his  youth  to 
the  study  of  metaphysics  and  Roman  law,  spent  some 
happy  years  in  a  tutorship  in  the  country,  and,  returning 
to  Naples,  passed  the  remainder  of  his  life  in  a  conflict 
with  poverty,  deriving  most  of  his  income  from  adulating 
the  great  in  complimentary  verses.  A  small  professorship 
of  rhetoric  eked  out  this  precarious  means  of  subsistence, 
and  when  the  Spanish  dynasty  supplanted  the  Austrian 
in  1734,  Charles  III.  conferred  a  pension  upon  him,  but 
the  aged  philosopher  was  already  sinking  into  a  condi- 
tion of  imbecility.  It  seems  surprising  that  he  should 
have  been  able  to  publish  so  many  important  and  far 
from  remunerative  books. 

Vico's  fame  rests  less  upon  any  particular  achievement 
than  upon  the  general  impression  which  he  produces  as  a 
man  greatly  in  advance  of  his  age.  His  superiority  in 
almost  every  branch  of  investigation  except  physical 
science,  of  which  he  knew  little,  arises  from  his  un- 
flinching application  of  a  principle  which  he  was  almost 
the  first  of  moderns  to  recognise,  that  man  is  to  be 
viewed  collectively.  All  individuals,  all  societies,  all 
sciences,  are  thus  concatenated  and  regarded  as  diverse 
aspects  of  a  single  all-comprehending  unity.  As  a  meta- 
physician and  a  jurist,  Vico's  claims  to  attention  are  very 
high,  but  do  not  properly  fall  within  our  scope.  They 
are  fully  set  forth  by  I^rofessor  Flint  in  his  volume  on 
Vico  in  Blackwood's  Philosophical  Classics.  We  can 
only  treat  of  Vico  where  he  comes  into  contact  with 
history  and  literary  criticism,  as  he  does  very  remark- 
ably in  his  criticisms  upon  Roman  history  and  upon 
Homer.     His  investigations  into  Roman  jurisprudence 


VICO 


291 


showed  him  the  untruth  of  the  traditions  of  the  Twelve 
Tables,  and  starting  from  this  point,  he  anticipated  almost 
everything  subsequently  brought  forward  by   Niebuhr, 
although  from  his  deficiency  in  exact  philological  know- 
ledge his  arguments  were  less  conclusive.      His  scepti- 
cism respecting  Homer  was  also  the  result  of  speculation; 
before  the  ballads  of  the  mediaeval  period  had  been  com- 
pared with  the  Homeric  poems,  he  pronounced  on  the 
internal  evidence  of   the  latter,  that  they  must  be  the 
work,  not  of  a  man,  but  of  a  nation.     In  both  depart- 
ments   he    may  have   gone   too  far,  but    his   views   are 
the  divinations  of  an  extraordinary  genius.      They  are 
intimately  connected  with  his  speculations  on  history 
which   anticipate  the  general   drift  of  modern  thought 
by  tending  to  put  nations  into  the  place  of  individuals 
and  to  represent  history  as  the  product  of  an  inevitable 
sequence  of  development.     These  views  greatly  influ- 
enced Herder  and  Turgot,  and,  through  them,  Europe 
Vico's  doctrine  of  the  three  stages  through  which  human 
society  passes  was  used,  if  it  was   not   plagiarised,  by 
Comte  and  Schelling. 

Another  great  Neapolitan  writer  of  the  age,  though 
working  on  a  much  smaller  scale  than  Vico,  attracted 
more  nijtice  from  contemporaries,  inasmuch  as  Vico 
seemed  to  deal  merely  with  abstract  things,  while 
Pn:TRO  GiANNONE  came  into  rough  contact  with  vested 
interests.  Giannone,  born  at  Ischitella,  in  Apulia,  May 
1676,  went  to  the  Neapolitan  bar,  and  made  the  legal 
and  ecclesiastical  history  of  the  kingdom  his  especial 
study.  In  his  Civil  History  of  the  Kingdom  of  Naples 
(1723),  the  work  of  twenty  years,  he  demonstrated  the 
illegitimacy  of  the  Papal  claims  to  jurisdiction  over 
Naples,  with  a  learning  and  research  which,  now  that 


292  ITALIAN  LITERATURE 

these  claims  are  no  longer  heard  of,  maintain  his  works 
in  request  as  one  of  the  highest  authorities  upon  medi- 
aeval law.  The  more  ordinary  qualities  of  a  historian 
are  not  manifested  in  the  same  measure,  but  Giannone's 
place  is  something  quite  apart.  The  hook  was  received 
with  gratitude  and  delight  by  the  educated  part  of  the 
public  ;  but  the  monks,  secretly  prompted  by  the  court 
of  Rome,  raised  an  outcry  against  Giannone  as  an  un- 
believer in  St.  Januarius,  and  he  was  compelled  to  fly 
the  country.  He  found  refuge  successively  in  Vienna, 
Venice,  and  Geneva;  but  having  been  tempted  into 
Savoy  for  the  purpose  of  attending  the  Roman  Catholic 
service,  was  seized  and  most  imquitously  imprisoned  by 
the  King  of  Sardinia,  the  King  Charles  of  Browning's 
drama,  until  his  death  in  1748,  though  he  maintained  all 
the  time  an  amicable  correspondence  with  the  King  and 
his  minister  D'Ormea.  Notwithstanding  the  wrongs 
which  he  suffered  from  tlie  house  of  Savoy,  he  foresaw 
and  foretold  its  greatness  and  service  to  the  nation.  He 
imitated  Machiavelli  by  exhorting  the  Italians  to  mili- 
tary discipline,  and  his  principal  work  is  epoch-making 
as  a  precursor  of  the  great  movement  which  tended 
to  subject  the  Church  to  the  civil  power  in  the  latter 
half  of  the  eighteenth  century.  He  also  composed  the 
Triregflo,  a  review  of  the  temporal  power  of  the  Church 
in  general,  which  was  so  effectually  sequestrated  as  to 
have  remained  unpublished  until  1895.  It  is  not  quite 
complete.  Gi  uinonc's  autobiography,  which  comes  down 
to  a  late  period  of  his  captivity,  was  published  for  the 

iirst  time  in  1891. 

Giannone  is  rather  a  jurist  than  an  historian,  and  the 
writers  whose  affinity  to  him  is  closest  are  not  historians 
like  Denina,  but  the  legists  and  economists,  Beccarai, 


LEGISTS  AND  ECONOMISTS 


293 


Filangieri,  Genovesi,  Galiani.  Three  of  these  distin- 
guished men  were  Neapolitans,  a  circumstance  signifi- 
cant alike  of  the  lively  genius  of  the  people,  and  of  the 
liberality  of  the  government  under  Charles  the  Third 
and  his  enlightened  minister  Tanucci.  The  spirit  of  the 
Renaissance  seemed  to  have  returned  in  some  measure  ; 
but  the  drift  was  not  now  to  the  classical  art  and  the 
literature  that  had  effected  the  spiritual  emancipation 
of  the  former  age,  but  to  new  theories  of  human  rights 
and  duties,  and  to  the  removal  of  restrictions  from  civic 
action  and  social  intercourse.  There  probably  never  was 
a  time  since  the  age  of  Marcus  Aurelius  when  philo- 
sophers attained  nearer  to  royalty  than  in  the  age  of 
Frederick  and  Catherine,  and,  were  not  vaster  issues  at 
stake  than  the  improvement  of  human  institutions,  the 
same  kind  of  regret  might  be  felt  at  the  French  Revolu- 
tion which  some  have  expressed  for  the  Reformation  as 
a  premature  movement,  destructive  of  safe  and  moderate 
reform. 

In  truth,  however,  the  human  spirit  at  both  epochs 
needed  regeneration ;  to  have  perpetuated  the  eighteenth- 
century  type,  admirable  as  this  is  in  many  respects,  would 
have  denoted  consent  to  dwell  in  decencies  for  ever. 
Cesake  Beccaria  (1738-94)  and  Gaetaxo  Filangieri 
(175-287)  were  nevertheless  great  reformers,  w^ho,  the 
former  in  his  Dei  Delitti  e  dclle  Pene  (1763),  the  latter 
in  his  Scienza  del  la  Legislazione  (1783),  contributed 
greatly  to  overthrow  mediaeval  notions  of  justice,  and 
to  infuse  a  humane  spirit  into  legislation,  not  merely  by 
the  abolition  of  revolting  and  atrocious  penalties,  but 
by  proposing  the  reformation  of  the  criminal  as  a  chief 
object  of  the  lawgiver.  This  was  the  especial  mission 
of  Beccaria.  who  also  introduced  a  very  important  prin- 


20 


«: 


294 


ITALIAN   LITERATURE 


ciple  by  his  clear  separation  of  the  legislative  and  the 
judicial  functions.  Filangieri  combats  in  particular  the 
excessive  interference  of  governments,  while  he  fore- 
shadows the  logic  and  simplicity  of  a  universal  code 
in  the  future,  realised  in  some  measure  by  the  Code 
Napoleon.  AxTOXio  Gexovesi  (1712-69),  the  first  to 
sliow  the  necessity  of  Italian  unity,  besides  making 
important  contributions  to  ethics  and  metaphy^iics,  ex- 
pounded freedom  of  trade  and  the  laws  that  govern 
prices,  in  his  Lestont  di  Conimercioy  0  sia  d Economia  Civile, 
Free  trade  in  corn  had  also  a  powerful  champion  in 
the  witty  Abate  Ferdixaxdo  Galiani  (1728-87),  whose 
most  important  works,  however,  were  written  in  French. 
Galiani  adorned  the  circles  of  the  encyclopaedist  philo- 
sophers at  Paris,  w^hose  views  on  many  points  he  soundly 
refuted,  and  who  avenged  themselves  by  comparing  the 
explosive  little  Neapolitan  to  a  pantomime  incarnate. 
His  discourse  upon  trade  in  corn  was  speedily  trans- 
lated into  Italian,  and  gave  him  rank  as  an  Italian  classic; 
the  best  known  of  his  vernacular  writings  is  probably  his 
humorous  account  of  the  alarm  created  by  an  eruption 
of  Vesuvius. 

After  this  group  of  economists — to  whom  the  historian 
PlETRO  Vekri  may  be  added — should  be  recorded  an- 
other of  literary  historians,  eminently  useful  though  not 
brilliant  writers,  and  consummate  men  of  letters.  Of 
GiOVAXXi  Mario  Crescimbexi,  the  historian  of  Italian 
poetry,  w^e  shall  have  to  speak  in  mentioning  the  Arcadian 
Academy,  which  he  so  largely  contributed  to  found  and 
maintain.  He  may  be  justly  termed  a  pedant,  but  neither 
his  book  nor  him.self  can  be  spared  from  ItaHan  literary 
history.  A  much  greater  name  is  LoDOVico  AxTOXio 
MURATORI  (1672-1745},  but  his  imperishable  monument 


MAFFEI 


295 


was  raised  not  as  author  but  as  editor.  The  publica- 
tion of  twenty-seven  folio  volumes  of  mediaeval  Italian 
historians  displays  a  man  singly  equal  to  many  learned 
societies.  No  one  has  stamped  his  name  more  deeply 
on  the  historical  literature  of  his  country  than  he  has 
done  by  this  publication,  by  his  Ayitiquitates  Itaiicce 
Medii  jEvi,  and  by  his  Annali  from  the  Christian 
era  to  1749.  One  of  his  original  writings  has  an  abid- 
ing place  in  lit^^rature,  the  Delia  perfetta  Poesia,  which 
indicates  the  high-water  mark  of  good  taste  at  the  time 
of  its  publication.  The  affected  style  of  the  preced- 
ing century  was  then  entirely  out  of  fashion.  On  the 
negative  side  Muratori's  taste  is  almost  faultless,  and  he 
often  manifests  great  discrimination  in  the  appreciation 
of  exquisite  beauties.  Unfortunately  he  is  all  for  the 
delicate  and  graceful,  and  has  little  feeling  for  the  really 
great,  of  which  the  Italy  of  the  eighteenth  century  saw 
hardly  so  much  as  the  counterfeit  until,  late  in  the 
secular  period,  Cesarotti  produced  his  version  of  Ossian. 
Muratori  venerates  Dante  rather  than  admires  him  ;  like 
Confucius,  he  respects  the  gods,  but  keeps  them  at  a 
distance. 

The  learning  and  industry  of  Muratori  were  almost 
rivalled  by  Marquis  SciPlOXE  Maffei  (1675-1755),  the 
sovereign  of  contemporary  Italian,  almost  of  Euro- 
pean archx^ologists,  author  of  the  famous  tragedy  of 
Merope  and  of  the  equally  famed  Verona  Illustrata;  and 
by  Count  Giovanni  Maria  Mazzuchelli  (1707-65),  who 
should  have  been  the  biographer-general  of  Italian  men 
of  letters,  but  who  began  his  work  on  too  large  a  scale  for 
completion.  Girolamo  Tiraboschi  (1731-94),  librarian 
of  the  Duke  of  Modena,  is  the  standard  Italian  literary 
historian.     His  iireat  work  has  immortalised  his  name; 


296 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE 


it  will  nevertheless  disappoint  those  who  resort  to  it  in 
the  expectation  of  encountering  a  history  on  the  modern 
plan.  It  is  not,  strictly  speaking,  so  much  a  history  of 
literature  as  a  history  of  learning.  The  fortunes  of  schools 
and  universities,  the  rise  and  decay  of  particular  branches 
of  study,  are  narrated  very  fully,  while  there  is  little  liter- 
ary criticism,  and  the  lives  of  great  men  are  recounted 
with  astonishing  brevity,  except  when  some  personal  or 
intellectual  circumstance  regarding  them  has  become 
the  theme  of  erudite  controversy,  when  the  incident 
overshadows  the  life.  One  of  the  most  potent  literary 
influences  of  the  age  w^as  the  Giornale  de  Lctterati, 
founded  early  in  the  century  by  Apostolo  Zeno,  which 
long  served  as  a  rallying  -  point  for  Italian  literary 
men. 

The  number  of  historical  works  published  in  Italy 
during  the  eighteenth  century  was  considerable,  but 
they  are  chiefly  monographs  on  local  history,  and,  un- 
less Verri's  history  of  Lombardy  be  an  exception, 
none  gained  the  author  the  character  of  a  philosophi- 
cal historian  save  Carlo  Dexixa's  Rivoluzioni  d' Italia 
(1768-72),  a  work  so  superior  to  the  writer's  other  per- 
formances that  it  has  been  doubted  whether  he  really 
WTote  it.  A  valuable  history  of  another  description 
was  produced  by  the  ex-Jesuit  LriGI  Laxzi  (1732-1811), 
also  celebrated  as  an  Etruscan  scholar,  in  his  Storia 
Pittorica  dell*  Italia,  long  ago  superseded  by  more  ac- 
curate research,  but  excellent  for  the  time.  Art  criti- 
cism was  promoted  by  Fraxcesco  Algarotti  (171 2- 
1764),  chamberlain  and  friend  of  Frederick  the  Great, 
Carlyle's  *^  young  Venetian  gentleman  of  elegance  in 
dusky  skin  and  very  white  linen,"  a  most  voluminous 
WTiter,  *'who,"  says   the   unmusical   Carlyle,  '^took   up 


THE  ARCADIA 


297 


the  opera  in  earnest  manner  as  capable  of  being  a 
school  of  virtue  and  the  moral  sublime,"  but  whose 
chief  title  to  fame  is  rather  his  popular  exposition 
of  the  physics  of  Newton,  a  modest  but  meritorious 
service.  Two  miscellaneous  writers  deserve  consider- 
able attention.  One  is  Giuseppe  Baretti  (1719-86), 
''a  wonderful,  wild,  coarse,  tender,  angry  creature," 
says  Vernon  Lee  ;  endeared  to  Englishmen  as  the 
friend  of  Johnson  and  of  Reynolds,  and  the  imitator 
of  the  Spectator  in  his  Frusta  Littcraria,  although  an 
Ishmael  whose  hand  was  against  every  contemporary, 
and  who  carried  personality  to  lengths  which  Addison 
would  have  highly  disapproved.  The  most  entertain- 
ing of  his  writings  are  his  lively  letters  from  Spain 
and  Portugal.  The  other  is  Gaspare  Gozzi  (1715-86), 
brother  of  the  famous  dramatist,  who  also  imitated 
the  Spectator  in  a  periodical,  wrote  excellent  stories  in 
prose  and  verse,  and  rendered  a  durable  service  to 
literature  by  his  defence  of  Dante  against  the  aspersions 
of  Bettinelli,  preluding  the  Dantesque  revival  of  the 
next  century. 

Contemporaneously  with  this  development  of  moral 
and  economical  science,  another  active  movement  went 
on  wiiich  created  far  more  agitation  among  Italian 
literati,  and  which,  if  it  scarcely  enriched  the  national 
Ltcrature  with  a  single  work  of  merit,  at  all  events  kept 
up  the  tradition  of  poetry.  This  was  the  universal  itch 
for  rhyming  which  seized  upon  the  nation  about  the 
beginning  of  the  eighteenth  century,  and  dates  from 
the  foundation  of  the  Arcadian  Academy  in  1692.  This 
epoch-making  event  is  related  wdth  unsurpassable  verve 
in  the  brilliant  pages  of  Vernon  Lee,  who  rekindles  for 
us  the  chief  lights  of  the  institution  and  the  time  :  the 


298 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE 


frigid  and  sardonic,  but  really  illustrious  jurist  Gravina, 
instructor  of  Montesquieu  and  of  the  Academy ;  the 
uncouth  pedant  but  excellent  administrator  Crescimbeni, 
whose  history  of  Italian  poetry  is  a  more  valuable  book 
than  Vernon  Lee  allows  ;  the  fluent  versifiers,  not  with- 
out gleams  of  a  genuine  poetical  vein,  Rolli  and  Frugoni ; 
the  marvellous  improvisatore  Perfetti,  a  sounding  brass, 
but  no  tinkling  cymbal,  who  actually  received  in  the 
Capitol  the  crown  awarded  to  I^etrarch  and  designed 
for  Tasso. 

The  seriousness  with  which  these  Alfesibeo  Carios 
and  Opico  Erimanteos  took  themselves,  their  crooks 
and  their  wigs,  is  astonishing.  But  they  got  accepted 
at  their  own  valuation,  and  none  disputed  their  claims 
as  the  sovereign  arbiters  of  elegant  literature  until, 
about  1760,  Giuseppe  Baretti  arose  to  demonstrate 
that,  as  shepherds,  they  must  be  the  representatives  of 
the  ancient  Scythians.  Settembrini  in  our  own  day 
rather  opines  that  they  were  created  by  the  Jesuits,  just 
as  the  Cobbett  of  the  Rejected  Addresses  denounces  ^Mhe 
gewgaw  fetters  of  rhyme,  invented  by  the  monks  in  the 
Middle  Ages  to  enslave  the  people."  Every  city  in 
Italy  had  its  offshoot  of  the  Arcadia  ;  every  member 
did  something  to  approve  his  literary  taste,  were  it 
but  one  of  the  hundred  and  fifty  elegies,  in  all  manner 
of  languages,  on  the  decease  of  Signor  Balestrieri's 
cat  (174 1).  The  result  was  a  deluge  of  insipid  ver-e, 
preferable  at  any  rate  to  the  extravagance  of  the  pre- 
ceding century. 

Two  Arcadians  alone  evinced  real  poetical  talent,  the 
two  Zappis  of  Imola.  Felice  Zappi  wrought  on  a  small 
scale,  but  with  exquisite  perfection.  His  sonnets,  madri- 
gals, and  lyrical  trifles  generally  are   among   the  very 


THE  ZAPPIS:    PARINI 


299 


choicest  examples  of  Italian  minor  poetry  for  elegance, 
esprit,  and  melody.  It  is  true  that  he  exposed  himself  to 
the  merciless  ridicule  of  Baretti  by  dreaming  that  he 
stood  upon  his  hind  legs  and  barked  madrigals  in  the 
character  of  his  lady's  lap-dog,  but  this  lapse  ought  not 
to  count  against  his  genuine  merits.  His  wife,  Faustina, 
formerly  Maratti,is  more  ambitious  but  less  consummate. 
Her  writings  are  nevertheless  always  estimable,  and  one 
sonnet  is  remarkable  for  an  energy  and  vehemence  sped 
straight  from  the  heart  : 

"  Lady^  on  who7n  juy  Lord  was  wont  to  gaze 
Complacent  so,  that  oft  unto  mine  ear 
Of  thy  abundant  tress  and  aspect  clear 

And  silvery  speech  he  yet  resounds  the  praise  j 

Tell  me,  when  thou  to  him  discourse  didst  raise, 
Seemed  he,  immersed  in  musing,  not  to  hearf 
Or,  as  to  me  may  chance,  did  look  austere. 

And  moody  frown  his  countenance  deface? 

Time  was,  I  know,  when  passio?iate  and  weak 
Thy  fair  eyes  found  hi^n,  and  I  k7iow  that,  till- 
But  ah  !  what  blushes  mantle  on  thy  cheek  ! 

Thy  glance  declines  to  earth,  thy  eyelids  thrill/ 
Answer,  I  pray  thee— no  I  hush  /  never  speak 
If  thou  wouldst  tell  me  that  he  loves  thee  still  P^ 

All  the  minor  Italian  versifiers  were  speedily  eclipsed 
by  the  genius  of  Metastasio,  whose  place,  however,  is 
with  dramatic  poets.  But  for  him,  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury  wore  away  without  producing  a  poet  of  great  mark, 
until,  in  1763,  Italy  was  startled  by  the  appearance  of 
the  Mattina,  the  first  part  of  the  Giorno  of  Giuseppe 
Parini.  Parini  is  particularly  interesting  as  the  first 
eminent  Italian  poet  who  shows  decided  traces  of  Eng- 
lish influence.  The  plan  of  his  poem  is  taken  from 
Thomson,  the  spirit  is  the  spirit  of  Pope  ;  the  net  result 


300 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE 


is  much  such  a  poem  as  Cowper  might  have  written  had 
he  been  an  Italian.     Just    as   Thomson    in    his    Seasons 
depicts  the   entire   course  of   Nature  from  four  points 
of  view,  so  Parini  in  his  Giorno  dehneates  the  useless 
Hfe  of  a  frivolous  young   Italian  of  quality  by  exhibit- 
ing the  occupations  of  his  morning,  afternoon,  evening, 
and    night.      The   spirit    is    that    of    Pope's   satires,   but 
Parini,  composing  in  blank  verse,  has  been  led    into  a 
style  more  nearly  resembling  that  of  Young,  although 
he    has    little    of    the    sententious    abruptness    of    the 
Night   Thoughts  or  of  their  fatiguing  glitter  :   the   four 
poems  are  perfect  wholes,  gliding  from  theme  to  theme 
by  the  most  ingenious  and  delicate  transitions,  and  re- 
plete with    charming  episodes;    the  diction  is  exquisite, 
and    the    blank    verse    the    best    that    Italy    had    then 
seen.     The  work  is  invaluable  as  a  picture  of  manners, 
and    a    masterpiece    of    delicate    polished    satire;     the 
jeuncsse    done    of     Milan     is    or    ought    to    be    made 
thoroughly   ashamed   of   the    vapidity   of    its   existence, 
but  every  phrase  is  urbane,  and  all  the  ridicule  dainty 
and    ironical.      The    subject    is    hardly    susceptible    of 
high  poetry,  but   Parini   has  adorned  it  as  only  a  poet 
could.     The   composition   of  the  remaining  three   parts 
occupied    him  for   many   years,    and   the    last   two   are 
not  quite  complete.     His  minor  pieces  reveal  the  same 
remarkable    power    as    the    Giorno   of   elevating   trifling 
circumstances  into  the  region  of  poetry.      One  sonnet 
especially  is  worthy  of   the  Greek  Anthology  in  finish 
and  charm  of  invention  : 

"  Benignant  Sleepy  that  on  soft  pinion  sped 

Dost  wing  through  li ark  ling  night  thy  noiseless  way^ 
And  fleeting  multitudes  of  a  reams  display 
To  weariness  reposed  on  quiet  bed : 


MELI  301 

Co  where  viy  Phi  His  doth  her  gentle  head 
And  bloomini!^  eheek  on  peaceful  pillow  lay. 
And  while  the  body  sleeps^  the  soul  affray 

With  dismal  shape  froin  thy  enchantment  bred. 

So  like  unto  mine  own  that  form  be  made. 
Pallor  so  dim  disflguring  its  face  ^ 
That  she  may  waken  l)y  compassion  swayed. 

If  this  thou  wilt  accomplish  of  thy  grace ^ 
A  double  wreath  of  poppies  I  will  braid^ 
And  silently  upon  thine  altar  pi  ace. ^^ 

Parini,  "  a  poor  sickly  priest,"  led  an  uneventful  life  in 
Milan  until  the  overthrow  of  Austrian  rule  by  the  French 
invasion,  when  he  came  forward  prominently  in  public 
affairs,  and  earned  credit  by  his  good  sense  and  modera- 
tion. He  died  in  1799,  aged  seventy.  He  was  a  high- 
minded  man  of  austere  morality. 

Another  poet  of  the  eighteenth  century  deserves  no  less 
fame  than  Parini,  but  has  remained  comparatively  un- 
known from  having  written  in  dialect.  It  is  his  com- 
pensation to  be  as  decidedly  at  the  head  of  the  Sicilian 
lyrists  as  Petrarch  is  at  the  head  of  the  Tuscan  ;  nor  is 
Sicilian  in  any  degree  a  rude  or  barbarous  idiom.  Schools 
of  Sicilian  poetry  existed  in  the  thirteenth,  and  again  in 
the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries,  but  all  previous 
celebrities  were  eclipsed  by  the  brilliant  achievements  of 
Giovanni  Meli  (1740-1815).  Meli  can  hardly  be  paral- 
leled either  with  Burns  or  with  our  English  Theocritus, 
William  Barnes,  for  he  possesses  neither  Burns's  tragic 
pathos  and  withering  satire,  nor  Barnes's  power  of  realistic 
description.  But  he  rivals  Burns  in  simplicity  and  melody, 
and  is  capable  of  much  loftier  lyric  flights  than  Barnes ; 
and  if  his  satire  does  not  brand  or  scathe,  it  smiles  and 
sparkles  with  genial  humour.  The  lightness,  ease,  and 
grace  of  his  songs  cannot  be  exceeded ;  his  pastorals  are 


302 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE 


worthy  of  a  countryman  of  Theocritus  ;  and  his  mock- 
liei  oics,  Don  Quixote^  and  the  Origin  of  the  Worlds  though 
evincing  less  of  poetical  inspiration,  are  effluences  of 
genuine  humour.  His  employment  of  the  Sicilian  dialect 
was  highly  favourable  to  his  genius  by  exempting  him 
from  all  obligation  to  write  witli  academical  constraint. 
It  is  most  interesting  to  find  Wordsworth's  plea  for  a 
return  to  nature  anticipated  by  a  Sicilian  of  the  generally 
stiff  and  affected  eighteenth  century.  One  of  the  most 
marked  features  of  his  poetry  is  its  lively  and  dramatic 
character,  arising  from  the  close  observation  of  national 
types,  apparently  just  as  they  were  observed  by  the 
ancient  writers  of  Sicilian  mimes,  Sophron  and  Epi- 
charmus.  '^As  in  antiquity,"  says  Paul  Heyse,  **so  at 
this  day,  idyll,  song,  and  mime  are  the  species  of  poetical 
composition  allotted  as  the  Sicilian  heritage."  Meli  re- 
presented the  national  genius  to  perfection.  His  life  was 
uneventful.  He  is  represented  as  an  amiable,  sensible, 
unassuming  man,  as  much  of  a  Bacchus  as  consistent 
with  sobriety,  and  as  much  of  an  Anacreon  as  comported 
with  an  utter  ignorance  of  Greek,  an  abate  of  the  old 
school,  attached,  but  not  in  a  perverse  or  bigoted  manner, 
to  the  ancient  social  order,  which,  by  the  aid  of  British 
ships  and  troops,  maintained  itself  better  in  Sicily  than 
elsewhere  in  Italy. 

The  licentious  poems  of  the  Abate  Giovanni  Battista 
Casti  (1721-1803)  deserve  attention  from  their  influence 
on  Byron's  Don  Jiian^  and  also  from  the  veiled  political 
character  of  many  of  them.  Casti,  an  accomplished 
traveller  and  acquainted  with  many  distinguished  men, 
belongs,  like  Talleyrand,  both  to  the  old  time  and  to  the 
new.  Attached  by  habit  and  taste  to  the  polished  and 
frivolous  society  of  the  ancient  regime,  his  sympathies 


CASTI 


303 


were  nevertheless  liberal.  He  satirised  Catherine  the 
Second,  and  when  exiled  from  Vienna  on  that  account, 
had  the  spirit  to  resign  his  Austrian  pension.  The 
Animali  Parian tij  a  satire  upon  the  rule  of  the  stronger 
in  political  life,  and  thus  an  interesting  revival  of 
tlie  old  conception  of  Reynard  the  Fox,  is  his  best 
w\:)rk. 

It  is  remarkable  that  the  age  of  Richardson  and 
Fielding  in  England,  and  Marivaux  and  Prevost  d'Exiles 
in  France,  should  have  produced  no  novelist  of  reputa- 
tion in  Italy.  The  imit  ition  of  even  such  w^orld-famed 
books  as  the  Nouvelle  Hcloise  and  WertJier  was  reserved 
for  a  later  generation.  One  romancer  acquired  some 
celebrity — Count  Alessandro  Verri  (1741-1816),  who 
hit  upon,  or  borrowed  from  Wieland,  the  idea  of  re- 
sorting for  his  themes  to  antiquity.  His  Noiti  Romaney 
Saffoy  and  Erostrato  are  all  works  of  merit,  and  the 
first-named  was  probably  not  without  influence  upon 
Landor. 

On  the  whole,  the  history  of  the  Italy  of  the  eighteenth 
century  is  in  most  departments,  intellectual  and  political, 
that  of  a  patient  recovering  from  a  formidable  malady  by 
slow  but  certain  stages.  Much  is  lost,  never  to  return. 
The  relation  of  Italy  to  the  rest  of  Europe  is  no  longer 
that  of  Athens  to  Sparta  or  Boeotia,  as  in  the  sixteenth 
century  ;  but  neither,  as  in  the  seventeenth,  is  she  es- 
tranged from  the  general  current  of  European  thought. 
Her  intellectual  position  may  be  read  in  the  very  por- 
traits of  her  eminent  men,  who  in  general  display  the 
placid  eighteenth-century  type,  and  might  as  well  have 
been  Frenchmen  or  Englishmen  as  Italians.  They  were 
WTiters  of  signal  merit  and  utility,  but,  Vico  excepted, 
not  men  of  creative  genius,  and  the  national  mind  might 


304 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE 


easily  have  degenerated  into  mediocrity  but  for  the 
tremendous  convulsions  of  the  end  of  the  century.  In 
one  province,  however,  she  stood  apart  and  supreme 
during  nearly  the  whole  of  the  age—the  drama,  with 
or  without  musical  accompaniment,  which  must  form 
the  subject  of  our  next  chapter. 


CHAPTER   XXII 

THE   COMEDY  OF    MASKS— THE    OPERA— DRAMA 
OF   THE    EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY 


The  eighteenth  century,  if  chiefly  remarkable  in  Italian 
literary  history  for  the  dawn  of  national  regeneration, 
and  the  assimilation  of  literature  to  the  type  prevailing 
in  other  European  countries,  is  also  memorable  as  the 
period  when  Italian  dramatists  first  acquired  a  Euro- 
pean renown.  This  recognition  may  be  considered  to 
date  from  the  production  of  Marquis  Maffei's  Merope  in 
1714,  and  from  the  summons  of  Apostolo  Zeno  to  Vienna 
a  few  years  afterwards.  These  two  men  represented, 
one,  the  classical  tragedy,  which,  notwithstanding  its 
conventional  acceptance,  has  ever  remained  an  exotic 
in  Italy  ;  the  other,  that  special  creation  of  Italian 
genius,  the  musical  play  or  opera.  Later  in  the  century, 
Aliieri  and  Metastasio  carried  both  forms  nearer  to  per- 
fection, and  Goldoni  gave  his  country  a  comedy  at  once 
brilliant  and  regular.  Yet  the  genuine  dramatic  life  of 
the  nation  is  to  be  found  in  the  commedia  dell'  artCy  or 
Comedy  of  Masks,  contemned  by  the  learned,  but  dear 
to  the  people,  which,  except  for  a  brief  interval  in  the 
hands  of  Carlo  Gozzi,  failed  to  clothe  itself  with  liter- 
ary form,  but  has  pervaded  the  theatres  of  Europe  in 
the  costume  of  harlequin,  columbine,  and  pantaloon. 
As   the   simplest,  the  commedia  deW  arte  is  probably 


305 


3o6 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE 


the  oldest  form  of  the  drama.  There  can  be  no  question 
that  the  Greek  rustics  who  smeared  their  faces  with 
wine-lees  at  the  Dionysiac  festivals,  and  from  whose 
improvised  son^i^s  and  f^estures  Greek  comedy  w^as  de- 
veloped, virtually  enacted  the  same  parts  as  the  Tuscan 
and  Neapolitan  peasants,  who,  inheritinj^  this  rude  enter- 
tainment from  Roman  times,  preserved  it  through  the 
Middle  Ages,  until  it  assumed  new  importance  in  the 
general  awakening  of  the  sixteenth  century.  The  original 
wine-lees  gave  place  to  masks,  and  as  masks  cannot  be 
varied  ad  infinitum,  the  characters  became  limited  to  a 
few  well-defined  and  salient  types.  Hence  every  piece 
had  substantially  the  same  personages ;  although  the 
Italian  comedy  allows  of  numerous  variations  upon  its 
four  stock  parts.  This  caused  the  dialogue  to  be  mainly 
extemporaneous  ;  and  as  comedy  is  more  easily  extem- 
porised than  tragedy,  the  pieces  tended  more  and  more 
towards  farce.  At  the  same  time,  *'  the  fertility  of  fancy, 
quickness  of  intelligence,  facility  of  utterance,  command 
of  language,  and  presence  of  mind,"  indispensable  to  a 
good  impromptu  comedian,  bestowed  a  certain  regularity 
upon  the  performance.  The  actor  was  obliged  to  observe 
the  conditions  imposed  by  the  character  he  represented, 
conventional  as  this  was  :  if  he  enacted  Pantaloon,  he 
must  not  comport  himself  as  Brighella  or  the  Doctor, 
and  vice  versa.  As  in  the  Indian  drama,  the  comic  pas- 
sages w^ere  usually  in  dialect ;  the  serious,  if  any,  in  culti- 
vated language.  Despised  as  literature,  these  pieces 
attained  great  popularity  even  beyond  the  limits  of  Italy, 
especially  in  Paris,  where  they  divided  public  favour  with 
the  national  theatre  for  a  hundred  and  fifty  years.  As, 
however,  they  were  mainly  improvised,  and  no  care  was 
taken  of  such  parts  as  might  chance  to  be  written  down, 


COMEDY  OF  MASKS 


307 


they  have  virtually  perished.  No  literary  relic  of  their 
palmy  days  seems  to  exist  except  the  scenarios  or  skeleton 
plans  of  some  of  them,  mere  outlines  to  be  filled  up  by 
the  performers.  Modern  readers  will  hardlv  obtain  a 
better  idea  of  their  spirit  than  from  Vernon  Lee's  inimi- 
table Prince  of  the  Hundred  Soups,  a  fantastic  tale  laid  in 
the  seventeenth  century,  the  culminating  period  of  these 
dramatic  impromptus,  towards  the  close  of  which  they 
began  to  yield  to  the  musical  drama.  Their  capability 
of  real  dramatic  excellence  is  revealed  by  two  more 
recent  developments— the  improved  Pulcinella  farces  of 
Fkaxcesco  Cerlone,  a  Neapolitan  tailor,  who,  in  the 
later  half  of  the  eighteenth  century,  "  lifted,"  says 
Scherillo,  "Pulcinella  from  the  crowd  of  masks,  and 
made  him  the  monarch  of  the  popular  theatre";  and 
the  fairy  dramas  of  Carlo  Gozzi,  a  Venetian  of  the  same 
period.  Both  usually  wrote  their  plays  out,  or  at  least 
left  comparatively  little  to  the  invention  of  the  actors; 
but  Cerlone  composed  entirely  in  the  spirit  of  the  corn- 
media  deir  arte.  His  Pulcinella  is  commonly  a  butt, 
designed  to  keep  the  audience  throughout  in  a  roar  of 
laughter  by  his  ridiculous  adventufes,  an  object  most 
fully  attained.  Gozzi's  pieces  are  of  higher  literary 
quality,  and  demand  a  more  particular  notice. 

Carlo  Gozzi  (1720-1808),  brother  of  Gaspare  Gozzi, 
already  mentioned,  would  merit  an  honourable  place 
among  Italian  writers  merely  on  the  strength  of  his  en- 
tertaining memoirs,  translated  by  Symonds.  His  real 
significance  in  literary  history,  however,  is  confined  to  ; 
the  four  brilliant  years  in  which  he  carried  all  before 
him  on  the  Venetian  stage  by  his  fiabe  or  dramatised 
fairy  tales,  composed  in  the  spirit  of  the  commedia  de/l' 
arte,  in  so  far  that  many  of  the  characters  belonged  to 


3o8 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE 


the  old  C( )nventional  types,  and  that  a  portion  of  the 
action  was  highly  farcical.  These  characteristics  were 
nevertheless  combined  with  a  regular  plot  capable  of 
exciting  deep  interest.  The  Jiade  originated  in  a  literary 
quarrel.  Goldoni,  the  restorer  of  true  comedy  to  Italy, 
had  denounced  the  butfooneries  of  the  old  commedia 
dcir  arte,  and  Gozzi,  who  had  himself  cultivat'jd  that 
form,  and  whose  partiality  for  it  w^as  enhanced  by  a 
misunderstimdinLj  with  Goldoni,  determined  to  show  its 
capabilities,  and  at  the  same  time  to  ridicule  his  dramatic 
rivals,  Goldoni  and  the  Abate  Chiari.  To  this  end  he 
hit  upon  the  extremely  happy  idea  of  dramatising  the 
fairy  tales  in  Basile's  Pcntaiiicrone,  thus  creating  a  form 
represented  in  English  literature  by  the  admirable  bur- 
lesques of  Planchc,  but  with  even  more  resemblance  to 
an  ancient  form  of  which  no  complete  example  remains, 
the  mythological  parodies  of  the  Attic  ^liddle  Comedy, 
which  combined  ridicule  of  the  tragic  poets  with  a  regular 
plot  derived  from  ancient  tradition. 

In  the  scenario  of  his  Three  Oranc^eSy  a  play  not  preserved 
in  its  entirety,  Gozzi  has  explained  how  he  burlesqued 
his  rivals,  as,  for  instance,  when  the  long  journeys  which 
Chiari's  personages  are  supposed  to  perform  within  the 
compass  of  a  single  action  are  ridiculed  by  Tartaglia 
and  Truffaldino  being  propelled  two  thousand  leagues 
by  the  devil  with  a  pair  of  belknvs.  ("  They  sprawled 
on  the  grass  at  the  sudden  cessation  of  the  favouring 
gale."j  The  success  of  the  Three  Oranges  was  inunense, 
and  contributed  to  drive  Goldoni  from  Venice.  It  was 
followed  by  a  rapid  succession  of  similar  pieces,  lending, 
however,  to  assume  more  of  a  literary  character,  and 
become  more  and  more  remote  from  the  original  type  of 
the  Comedy  of  Masks.    This,  if  diminishing  their  value  as 


CARLO  GOZZI 


309 


illustrations  of  popular  manners  and  sentiment,  renders 
them  more  generally  enjoyable  ;  and  they  would  have 
a  wide  European  reputation  were  they  not  principally 
composed  in  the  Venetian  dialect.  Turandoty  in  the 
translaticMi,  or  rather  imitation,  of  Schiller,  is  known 
wherever  German  literature  extends ;  but  the  scarcely 
inferior  merits  of  the  Blue  Monster ^  the  Gi-een  Bird^  and 
the  like,  have  not  in  general  induced  foreigners  to  learn 
the  Venetian  patois. 

Gozzi,  in  truth,  just  missed  greatness;  he  had  the 
artistic  talent  to  work  out  a  clever  idea,  but  not  the 
poetical  fancy  requisite  to  elevate  this  to  a  region  of 
ideal  beauty.  As  suggested  by  Symonds,  his  pieces 
would  supply  excellent  material  for  operatic  libretti. 
Tieck  subsequently  undertook  the  task  with  higher 
qualilications,  but  the  favourable  moment  had  gone  by. 
Gozzi's  plays  are  the  true  offspring  of  the  national 
spirit,  Tieck's  merely  importations.  After  four  years 
of  brilliant  triumphs,  Gozzi  stopped  short,  fearing  to 
fatigue  the  public  taste,  or  conscious  of  having  ex- 
hausted his  vein.  The  remainder  of  his  career  as  a 
dramatic  author  was  chiefly  occupied  with  adaptations 
from  the  Spanish. 

While   in  the  later  seventeenth   and  early  eighteenth 

century   the    Comedy  of    Masks   was   decaying,    a   new 

form  of   drama  was  silently  growing  up,  the  operatic, 

"a  thing,"  says  Vernon  Lee,  *^  born  of  scenic  displays 

and  concerts,  moulded  into  a  romantic,  wholly  original 

shape,    by    the    requirements    of    scenery,    music,    and 

singing."       Its    character    as    a    literary    production    is 

indicated  by  the  fact  that  its  proper  title  of  melodrama 

has  become  synonymous  with  something  quite  different, 

the    prose    tragedy   which   aims   at    strong    sensational 
21 


3IO 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE 


situations,  while  melodramatic  evokes  no  association  with 

music. 

The  chief    representatives   of   new  literary   forms  are 
frequently   heralded   by   precursors,   who,    if   serving   in 
some  sense  as  foils  to  their  genius,  yet  deprive  them  of 
the  praise  of  absolute  originality.     What  Phrynichus  was 
to  ^:schylus,  and   Marlowe   to   Shakespeare,  Apostolo 
ZexO  (1668-1750),   a  Venetian   of  Candiote   extraction, 
was  to  PiETRO  MetastasiO.     It  was  not  Metastasio  but 
Zeno  who  gave   the   musical  drama   literary   rank,  and 
proved  that  poets  as  well  as  musicians  might  make  their 
reputations  and  their   fortunes  by   it.      Zeno  produced 
his  first  serious  attempt  in  musical  drama  in  1695,  and 
long  held  the  position  of  chief  dramatic  poet  of   Italy. 
After  founding  and  for  many  years  conducting  the  in- 
fluential Giormiie  dc   Lcttcrati,  he  became  court  poet  at 
Vienna   in    1718,    and   eleven    years    afterwards   retired 
voluntarily    in    favour    of    the    rising    Metastasio,    w^ho 
completely  eclipsed    him   on   the   stage,   but  could    not 
deprive  him  of  the  honour  of  having  first  taught  Italy 
how  dramatic  poetry  of  a  high  order  might  be  associated 
with  music.     Zeno,  more.  )\  er,  was  no  mere  playwright, 
but  a  good  lyrical  poet  with  a  strong  dramatic  instinct, 
a  scholar,   moreover,   and    antiquary,   and    a    renowned 
collector  of  medals.     His  last  years  were  spent  in  honour 
and  comfort  at  his  native  Venice.    Ere  his  life  terminated 
in  1750  the  productiveness  of  his  successor  had  almost 

come  to  an  end. 

Metastasio's  long  prosperous  life  w\as  not  destitute  of 
romance.  The  son  (born  1698)  of  a  petty  Neapolitan 
druggist  settled  at  Rome,  he  was  adopted  by  the  famous 
jurist  and  excellent  dramatic  critic  Gravina,  who  had 
heard  him   singing   in   the   street,   for   although  at  the 


METASTASIO 


311 


time  an  inglorious,  he  was  fortunately  not  a  mute  Milton. 
Victor  Cousin  was  similarly  snatched  from  the  gutter,  for 
different  issues  and  from  different  motives.  His  sonorous 
appellative  was  the  gift  of  his  patron,  who  Hellenised 
his  protege's  original  name  of  Trapassi,  and  left  him  a 
fortune.  After  wasting  most  of  his  benefactor's  legacy, 
Metastasio  articled  himself  to  a  Neapolitan  lawyer 
named  Castagnola,  who  received  him  on  condition 
that  he  should  not  even  read,  much  less  WTite,  a  line 
of  verse.  This  pledge  was  broken  by  the  composition 
in  1722  of  the  Gardens  of  the  Hesperides^  a  little  mask 
composed  under  compulsion  from  the  Austrian  viceroy. 
The  secret  of  the  authorship  was  ferreted  out  by  La 
Romanina,  the  celebrated  cantatrice^  who  pounced 
upon  Metastasio,  bore  him  from  Castagnola's  house  to 
her  own,  and  made  him  a  dramatic  poet.  She  was 
a  married  woman  much  older  than  Metastasio,  and 
there  seems  no  suggestion  that  her  affection  w^as  other 
than  maternal.  It  ended,  however,  unhappily,  perhaps 
tragically. 

The  immense  success  of  his  Didone  Abbandonata^  per- 
formed at  Rome  in  1723,  and  followed  by  a  number 
of  similar  pieces,  had  made  Metastasio  the  undisputed 
sovereign  of  the  lyric  stage,  and  in  1730  he  was  invited 
to  Vienna  to  replace  the  veteran  Zeno.  He  went.  La 
Romanina  wished  to  follow,  but  never  did,  and  died 
very  suddenly  in  1734.  Had  Metastasio,  now  devoted 
to  Countess  Althan,  to  w^hom  he  is  said  to  have  been 
privately  married,  obstructed  her  journey  ?  and  was  her 
death  natural  ?  There  is  nothing  but  surmise  as  to  the 
precise  nature  of  the  case  ;  but  Vernon  Lee's  tragical 
summing-up  is  true  as  a  statement  of  fact:  "Thus 
ended  the  romance  of  Metastasio's  life,  and  with  it  his 


312  ITALIAN  LITERATURE 

youth,  and  soon  after  his  hope  and  his  genius."     His 
Vienna  period  between  1730  and   1740  was  artistically 
the  most  brilliant  of  his   life,  but  he  wrote  little  after- 
wards ;  though  his  dramas  long  monopolised  the  Italian 
lyric   stage  ;   and  the  decline  of   his  productive  power 
seems   to"  have    been    chiefly    owing   to   the    untoward 
interruption  to   dramatic   performances   occasioned  by 
the  Austrian  war  of  succession  in   1740  and  folio wmg 
years.     When   peace  returned,   Metastasio  had  become 
nervous  and  hypochondriacal  ;  he  yet  gained  his  culmi- 
nating triumph  with  ihi^  A tiiio  Regolo  in   1750,  and  the 
later  half  of  his  life,  which  ended  in  1782,  was  embel- 
lished bv  his  friendsliip  with  the  Italian  singer-statesman, 
FarinclH.     Metastasio  was  selfish,  but  not  cold-hearted ; 
he  pined  for  affection,  but  shrank  from  self-sacrifice  ; 
and   his   self-regarding    instinct   was   not   ennobled   by 
devotion  to  any  of  the  causes  or  pursuits  which  inspired 
Goethe.     Yet  he  was  a  connoisseur  in  virtue,  and  his 
dramas  represent  her  in  some  of  her   most   attractive 
shapes.     He  saw  forty  editions  of  his  works  in  his  own 
library  ;  he  had  not  only  accumulated  but  had  refused 
distinctions;   if  he  could  feel  free  from  blame  towards 
La  Romanina,  there  was  nothing  with  which  he  needed 
to   reproach   himself.      His   life   had   been   a  continual 
triumpli  ;   no  wonder  if  he  had  become  weary  of  it  at 

last. 

Operatic  success  requires  two  endowments  rarely 
united  in  the  same  person,  the  ingenuity  of  a  playwright 
and  the  melody  of  a  nightingale.  Both  these  are  com- 
bined in  Metastasio  ;  he  is  a  very  Scribe  for  briskness, 
deftness,  and  clever  contrivance  of  plot;  ere  he  had 
become  nervous  and  depressed,  his  Neapolitan  brain 
seethed  at  a  dramatic  situation  ;  his  Achilie  in  Sciro,  one 


METASTASIO 


313 


of  the  best  of  his  pieces,  w^as  written,  provided  with 
music  and  scenery,  and  thoroughly  organised  for  repre- 
sentation, wdthin  eighteen  days.  Other  Italian  librettists 
may  have  rivalled  him  in  tunefulness  or  in  the  faculty  of 
dramatic  construction,  none  in  both  these  respects,  and 
none  have  been  able  to  impart  the  like  literary  quality  to 
their  compositions  ;  partly  because  he  possessed  and 
they  lacked  the  indescribable  something  that  makes  the 
poet  ;  partly  because  the  sentiment  which  with  them  is 
merely  theatrical,  is  with  him  sincere. 

The  general  inferiority  of  operatic  libretti  has  occa- 
sioned the  musical  drama  to  be  despised  as  a  branch  of 
literature  ;  although,  to  say  nothing  of  the  recent  achieve- 
ments of  Richard  Wagner,  the  Euripidean  play,  with 
its  frequent  predominance  of  solos  over  choral  parts, 
approximated  to  the  modern  opera.  It  is  no  doubt  true 
tliat  the  first  requisite  is  that  the  w^ords  should  be  a 
vehicle  for  the  music,  and  that,  supposing  this  object 
attained,  it  is  feasible  to  dispense  wnth  poetry.  It  fol- 
low^s  that  poetry  usually  is  dispensed  with,  and  that  the 
only  literary  gift  deemed  absolutely  indispensable  for 
opera  is  that  of  dramatic  construction.  It  is  the  great 
distinction  of  Metastasio  to  have  been  at  the  same  time 
a  consummate  playwright  and  a  true  lyrical  poet.  Other 
great  playwrights  have  been  great  poets  in  blank  verse  ; 
but,  at  any  rate  for  the  first  half  of  his  life,  Metastasio's 
bosom  was  as  affluent  a  storehouse  of  melody  as  Ruck- 
ert's ;  to  sing  was  for  him  as  easy  as  to  speak.  He  was 
constrained  to  submit  himself  to  the  laws  of  the  opera, 
inexorable  because  founded  upon  the  reason  of  things. 
As  an  opera  can  be  nothing  without  a  cantatricc^  it 
follows  that  it  must  turn  chiefly  upon  the  passion  of 
love  ;  as  the  principal  performers'  throats  w^ill  not  bear 


3H 


ITALIAN   LITERATURE 


a  perpetual  strain,  they  must  necessarily  be  sometimes 
relieved  by  inferior  executants  ;  hence  the  necessity  of 
an  underplot,  and  of  constructive  ability  to  interweave 
this  with  the  main  action.  As  the  musical  drama  is  not, 
after  all,  natural,  the  audience's  attention  must  be  kept 
occupied  by  continual  action  and  bustle  ;  as  the  singer 
must  leave  the  stage  at  his  best,  the  recitative  must  be 
followed  by  an  air.  Such  tags  must  be  judged  simply 
with  reference  to  the  musical  effect,  which  with  Meta- 
stasio  was  always  very  great.  On  the  whole,  few  writers 
have  adapted  means  to  ends  more  successfully  than  he 
has  done,  or  have  more  completely  solved  the  problem 
of  investing  the  amusement  of  the  moment  with  abiding 
literary  worth. 

The  most  celebrated  of  Metastasio's  lyrical  dramas  are 
perhaps  the  Olinipiade^  the  Achille  in  Sciro,  the  Clemcnza 
di  Tito,  and  the  Atilio  Regolo.  The  Artaserse,  the  Tcmis- 
tocle,  the  Zenobia^  have  also  a  high  reputation,  and  in 
truth  the  intervals  of  merit  among  his  pieces  are  not 
very  wide.  The  operatic  dramatist  is  released  from 
many  of  the  obligations  which  press  most  heavily  upon 
the  tragic  or  comic  poet;  he  is  at  liberty  to  mingle 
the  manners  and  ideas  of  different  ages  and  nations 
as  much  as  he  pleases  ;  no  great  profundity  of  psycho- 
logical analysis  can  be  expected  from  him,  for  if  he 
possessed  this  gift  tlic  conditions  of  his  field  of  art 
would  debar  him  from  manifesting  it.  It  is  enough 
if  his  subject  is  interesting,  his  action  lively  and  well 
combined,  and  his  melody  copious  and  spontaneous. 
Metastasio  selected  his  themes  with  consummate  judg- 
ment, and  showed  a  Scribe-like  power  of  devising  bust- 
ling action  and  sudden  surprises,  while  his  tunefulness  is 
remarkable  even  for  an  Italian  poet.     His  pieces  would 


MAFFEI 


315 


have  enthralled  audiences  even  without  literary  charm. 
That  they  retain  their  place  in  the  library  after  their 
disappearance  from  the  stage  proves  him  a  poet  as 
well  as  a  dramatist.  His  oratorios  resemble  his  secu- 
lar pieces,  but  are  less  interesting.  His  cantatas  have 
the  air  of  loppings  from  his  dramas.  The  chief  merit 
of  his  other  lyrical  compositions  is  their  inexhaustible 
melody. 

The  vogue  of  the  lyrical  drama  under  Zeno  and  Meta- 
stasio  was  not  favourable  to  the  more  legitimate  forms 
of  the  art.  '' Ce  beau  monstre,'*  said  Voltaire,  ^^  ^touffe 
Mcipomate:'  If  so,  the  Italian  drama  was  stifled,  like 
Desdemona,  in  her  sleep.  The  extravagance  of  the 
first  half  of  the  seventeenth  century  had  been  suc- 
ceeded by  the  torpor  of  the  second,  and  nothing  really 
good  had  been  produced  in  either.  It  was  not  until 
1 71 3  that  a  tragedy  appeared  which  deserved  and  ob- 
tained a  European  reputation.  This  was  the  Merope 
of  Marquis  Scipione  Maffei,  whose  principal  work,  his 
Verona  Illiistrata^  has  already  been  mentioned,  and  who, 
besides  many  other  claims  to  distinction,  gained  an 
honourable  fame  as  a  natural  philosopher,  as  the  critical 
historian  of  chivalric  orders,  and  as  the  denouncer  of 
duelling.  A  man  of  this  stamp,  however  gifted,  was 
not  likely  to  be  richly  endowed  with  the  poetical  tem- 
perament, and  Maft'ei's  Merope  shares  the  almost  uni- 
versal fault  of  modern  tragedies  on  classical  subjects, 
it  is  essentially  a  work  of  reflection.  It  was  composed 
with  the  deliberate  purpose  of  retrieving  the  Italian 
drama  from  its  degraded  condition,  and  was  the  result 
of  conversations  with  the  actor  Riccoboni,  author  of 
an  esteemed  work  on  the  Italian  stage,  w4io  lamented 
that  the  theatre  of  his  own  country  afforded  him  no 


3i6 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE 


fine  parts.  The  want  was  well  supplied  by  Merope, 
the  plot  being  highly  dramatic,  and  the  treatment,  in 
the  opinion  of  Matthew  Arnold,  more  poetical  than  that 
of  either  of  Maffei's  successors,  Voltaire  and  Altieri. 

Mallei  nLvertheless  was  to  yield  to  one  of  the  most  extra- 
ordinary men  that  Italy  ever  produced,  one  brought  up 
under  so  many  disadvantages  that  it  might  seem  impos- 
sible that  he  should  occupy  a  high  place  in  the  literature 
of  his  country,  and  who  nevertheless,  by  the  mere  force 
of  will  and  character,  has  fought  his  way  to  almost  the 
highest  in  his  own  field.     It  must  be  added  that  although 
Count  VlTTORlO  Alfiehi   (1749-1803)   might   probably 
have  been  eminent  as  an  historian  or  a  political  writer, 
traeedv  and  satire  were  the  onlv  departments  of  poetry 
in  which  it  seems  possible  that  lie  should  have  excelled. 
This  is  as  much  as  to  say  that  he  was  by  nature  little  of 
a  poet.     He  was  also  little  of  an  Italian,  being  by  birth  a 
Piedmontese,  a  people   whom  the   Italians  of  that  day 
regarded,  from  an  ethnographical  p(.int  of  view,  much 
as    the    Greeks    of     Pliilip's    day    regarded    the    Mace- 
donians,   and    who    were    in    truth    destined    to    work 
out  the  parallel  by  subduing  the  rest  of  the  peninsula, 
though   with   very   different  aims   and  to  very  different 
results.     AHieri    was    indeed    more   like   an    Englishman 
than   an    Italian,   and   might   well    have   sat  as    a  model 
to   some    delineator  of  tlie   haughty,   eccentric,  whimsi- 
cal, misanthropic,  hopelessly  perverse,  but  on  occasion 
extravagantly   generous  being  who   is  still  accepted  on 
the    Continent   a^    the   embodiment  of    British   national 
character.      He   did,    in   fact,    belong  to   a   type   more 
common   in  England  than  elsewhere,  the  patrician  re- 
publican  of  the  mould   of  Algernon   Sidney  or  Savage 
Landor,  animated  by  an  unaffected  passion  for  liberty, 


ALFIERI 


317 


and  yet  arrogant,  exacting,  domineering ;  fired  by  a 
disinterested  love  of  man,  and  always  quarrelling  with 
men. 

AHieri  fortunately  felt  moved  to  write  his  Autobio- 
graphvy  a  w^ork  of  intense  interest,  and  perhaps  the  most 
thoroughly  sincere  among  celebrated  books  of  its  order 
of  literature.  It  depicts  a  man  continually  under  the 
influence  of  pride  and  discontent,  but  whom  pride  and 
discontent  stimulate  to  lofty  endeavour  and  noble  actions. 
Vivid  indeed  is  the  picture  of  his  self-contempt  for  his 
wasted  youth  and  his  ignorance  of  his  own  language, 
the  speech  of  Piedmont  being  then  the  worst  of  all  pro- 
vincial jargons.  Most  interesting  is  the  detail  of  his  self- 
education,  both  in  purity  of  diction  and  in  the  dramatic 
art.  This  psychological  interest  is  relieved  and  enhanced 
by  the  detail  of  his  numerous  adventures,  his  extensive 
travels,  and  his  love  affairs,  three  of  which  were  memor- 
able. In  London,  in  1772,  he  fought,  by  the  last  rays  of 
the  setting  sun,  unattended  by  seconds,  a  duel  with  the 
injured  husband  of  Lady  Ligonier,  and'  wounded  in  the 
right  arm,  was  immediately  afterwards  back  in  the  theatre 
out  of  which  he  had  been  summoned  to  the  frav.  His 
Milan  adventure,  if  less  romantic,  was  more  whimsical  : 
convinced  of  the  unworthiness  of  his  siren,  he  imitated 
Ulysses  by  compelling  his  servant  to  bind  him  to  lii ; 
clKiir  until  the  craving  for  her  company  liad  passed 
away. 

Aliieri's  third  escapade  of  the  kind  is  world-famous, 
his  rescue  of  Louise  von  Stolberg,  Countess  of  Albany, 
from  the  drunken  husband  who  habitually  maltreated 
her,  and  who,  one  blushes  to  record,  was  no  other  than 
.Charles  Edward  Stuart,  the  chivalrous  and  adventu- 
rous Young  Pretender  of  a  former  generation.    Aliieri's 


iiiBMfiamflMMBflMiiftlTrirtiitiiirtiniili  rilM  iili"ill>rTnifl~iiflliiiii1iiii«iiiifiiiiim  unriinlftiinillirtyMhiMhuiMi—Miiiintiiliirtii  HiIttiI 


MBiiliiflniTlfMli'i.lMllliiMMIi 


3i8 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE 


attachment  to  the  Countess  was  undoubtedly  deep  and 
permanent,  and  althou.i^h  she  seems  to  have  forgotten 
liim  after  his  death,  she  felt  for  him  when  he  was  the 
only  resource  she  had  in  tlie  world.  The  intimacy  nii^ht 
loni^  have  remained  I^latonic  but  for  the  extreme  bru- 
tality of  Charles  Edward,  which  compelled  the  Countess 
to  esc  ipc  by  x\liieri's  contrivance  to  a  convent  where  she 
saw  neitlier  her  husband  nor  her  lover.  After  a  while 
the  Cardinal  of  York,  the  Pretender's  brother,  offered  her 
an  asylum  hi  a  Roman  palace,  where  her  acquaintance 
with  AHieri  became  more  intimate.  Afterwards,  le<^ally 
separated  by  the  interposition  of  the  Kinj^  of  Sweden, 
she  withdrew  to  Alsace,  where  Altieri  followed  her.  They 
eventually  established  themselves  in  I^aris,  and  the  death 
of  Charles  Edward  made  no  change  in  their  existence. 
Louise,  though  apparently  not  a  warm-hearted,  was  a 
highly  intellectual  woman  ;  half  French,  half  German, 
she  possessed  a  range  of  knowledge  and  accomplishment 
which  Alfieri  could  hardly  have  found  in  any  Italian 
•woman  at  that  date,  and  her  sympathy,  without  doubt, 
contributed  greatly  to  the  development  of  his  genius. 
Driven  from  France  by  the  storms  of  the  Revolution, 
which  he  had  at  iirst  hailed  with  a  warmth  which  he 
afterwards  repented,  Altieri  settled  with  his  mistress  at 
Florence.  There  he  wrote  tlie  Misogallo^  a  furious  de- 
nunciation of  France,  and  exhausted  by  hard  study  and 
an  ascetic  life,  died  in  October  1803,  as,  with  an  un- 
conscious touch  of  irony,  he  was  compelling  himself  to 
write  ciunedies.  There  seems  no  ground  for  believing 
that  he  was  privately  married  to  the  Countess,  who 
honoured  him  with  a  monument  beautifully  sculptured 
by  Canova.  If,  however,  the  mourning  figure  by  th«r 
tomb  represents  the  bereaved  one,  she  has  taken  the 


ALFIERI 


319 


lion's  share,  Alfieri  appearing  merely  as  a  medallion  head 
in  profile.  Room  should  have  been  found  for  a  bust 
at  least,  for  whimsical,  saturnine,  arrogant  as  he  w^as, 
he  possessed  not  only  a  head  but  a  heart.  Scornful  of 
superstition,  he  was  endowed  with  deep  religious  feeling, 
and  the  defects  of  his  harsh,  angular  character  were  at 
all  events  remote  from  those  national  failings  which  had 
chiefly  contributed  to  the  ruin  of  Italy. 

It  is  remarkable  indeed  that  a  Piedmontese,  who  had 
to  teach  himself  classical  Italian  with  infinite  labour, 
and  whose  character  possessed  few  distinctively  national 
traits,  should  have  been  the  reviver  of  the  national  spirit 
in  Italy.  This  Alfieri  unquestionably  was.  He  had  what 
is  so  deplorably  wanting  among  the  gifted  men  of  the 
golden  age  of  Italian  literature,  a  passion  for  freedom 
and  a  hatred  of  tyranny,  which  impart  to  his  works,  how- 
ever remote  in  subject  from  modern  times,  the  air  of 
indignant  protests  against  the  subjection  and  degrada- 
tion of  his  country.  This  feeling,  as  well  as  the  haughty 
and  self-sufficing  independence  of  his  character,  brings 
him  very  near  to  the  stoical  Romans  of  the  age  of  Nero, 
whose  literary  productions  he  approaches  by  his  declama- 
tory eloquence,  his  defective  feeling  for  nature,  and  the 
generally  studied  and  laboured  character  of  his  poetry. 
Had  Seneca  possessed  the  leading  requisites  of  a  tragic 
poet,  he  would  have  been  a  kind  of  Roman  Alfieri. 
Comparing  Alfieri's  tragedy  with  the  modern  form  of 
the  art  which  owes  most  to  Seneca,  the  P'rench  drama 
of  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries,  we  are 
sensible  of  a  great  advance  ;  not  that  Alfieri  is  com- 
parable as  a  poet  or  a  stylist  to  Corneille  or  Racine, 
but  that  his  dramatic  economy  is  improved  by  the 
suppression  of  much   conventional  machinery,  and  the 


I 


i'ltf.arttiar-^'^'^'-^  ■"*iiif^ii  nff  ■iniiiitJlMh-jl>mym8iBlitl«^lilMrfr<maifJifiBihiiri  lilniM 


^^^g^^jgg^jjl^^g^gjgg^^^^^ggggm 


320 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE 


subordination  of  amorous  gallantry  to  more  dignified 
and  serious  emotion. 

The  strongest  family  likeness  prevails  among  Alfieri's 
tragedies.  ''  He  is,"  says  Arnold,  *'  a  noble-minded,  deeply- 
interesting  man,  but  a  monotonous  poet."  The  quality 
of  **  narrow  elevation  "  which  Arnold  fmds  in  Alfieri  is 
indeed  most  apparent  throughout  all  his  plays  ;  but  they 
are  not,  like  so  many  productions  of  the  classical  school, 
tame  and  frigid  from  pedantic  over-correctness,  nor  are 
they  untrue  to  nature  through  servile  adherence  to  tradi- 
tion and  convention.  Their  dignity  and  nobility  of  feel- 
ing inspire  deep  respect ;  the  author  is  evidently  akin  to 
the  heroes  he  depicts,  and  in  their  place  would  have  been 
capable  of  their  actions.  His  genius  did  not  lead  him  to 
the  imitation  of  the  Greeks  ;  his  plays  are  rather  such  as  a 
Roman  poet  might  have  produced  if  he  could  have  more 
completely  emancipated  himself  from  Greek  models.  He 
aimed  at  nervous  conciseness,  and  attained  it.  The  elo- 
quence which  he  acquired  by  a  Demosthenic  severity  of 
study  may  be  fitter  for  the  forum  than  the  stage,  but  rarely 
degenerates  into  mere  rhetoric.  His  theme  is  always 
some  grand  action  derived  from  history  or  mythology. 
His  predilection  is  rather  for  the  heroes  of  liberty,  like 
Timoleon  or  the  Brutuses.  Saul,  however,  is  probably 
his  most  successful  play  upon  the  whole,  tliough  Myrrha 
may  produce  the  greatest  effect  when  an  actress  can  be 
found  competent  for  so  exceptional  a  part.  PJiilip  the 
Second  \\\<\s\xiiA  Schiller's  Don  Carlos,  Antigone,  Orestes, 
and  the  Co7ispiraey  of  the  Faczi  may  also  be  named  among 
Altieri's  most  successful  pieces. 

Alfieri's  prose-writings  possess  no  great  value,  except  the 
Autobiography,  which  is  invaluable  alike  from  the  interest 
of  the  character  depicted  and  of  the  events  narrated, 


ALFIERI'S  MINOR  WRITINGS 


321 


and  from  its  transparent  candour.  As  a  rule,  the  only 
quite  trustworthy  autobiographic  delineations  are  the 
unconscious  ones.  Pepys  has  undoubtedly  portrayed 
himself  just  as  he  was,  but  it  is  equally  certain  that  he 
had  no  intention  of  doing  so.  Alfieri  may  or  may  not 
have  depicted  himself  as  he  was,  although  the  portrait 
is  perfectly  in  harmony  with  the  impression  derived  from 
his  writings.  But  he  has  unquestionably  depicted  him- 
self as  he  appeared  to  himself,  and  more  could  not  be 
expected.  Alfieri's  minor  poems  display  the  "narrow 
elevation  "  ascribed  by  Matthew  Arnold  to  his  tragedies. 
He  has  little  music,  fancy,  or  variety,  but  expresses  strong 
feeling  with  unusual  energy,  especially  when  moved  to 
wrath  : 

"  Was  Ano;clo  born  here  ?  a?td  he  who  wove 

Love's  eharm  with  sorcery  of  Tuscan  tongue 

Indissolubly  blent  f  and  he  whose  song 
Laid  bare  the  world  below  to  world  above  f 
And  he  whof-om  his  lowly  valley  clove 

The  azure  height  a?id  trod  the  stars  among? 

Ajid  he  70 hose  searching  jnind  the  monarches  wrong 
Fount  of  the  peoples  misery  did  prove  f 
Yea.  these  had  birth  when  men  mii^ht  uncontrolled 

Speak,  read,  write,  reaso?i  with  impunity; 

Not  from  the  chair  was  cowardice  extolled ; 
Not  for  free  thinkifig  would  indictmettt  lie; 

Nor  did  the  city  in  her  Book  of  Gold 

Inscribe  the  name  and  office  of  the  spyj^ 

If  Alfieri  was  a  manifest  child  of  Melpomene,  the  third 
great  dramatic  writer  of  the  age  bore  the  impress  of 
Thalia  with  no  less  distinctness.  Carlo  Goldoxi's  me- 
moirs paint  with  the  utmost  liveliness  the  born  comedian, 
careless,  light-hearted,  proof  by  a  happy  temperament 
against  all  strokes  of  Fate,  yet  thoroughly  respectable 


■jjL&riJi^-fcJtCMJIhami  I'lAj 


322 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE 


and  honourable.  Such  characters  abound  in  Italy,  and 
wonderful  it  is  tliat  only  one  member  of  so  observant 
and  lively  a  race  should  have  won  an  European  reputa- 
tion as  a  comic  author.  Tragedy  has  in  some  measure 
flourished  since  the  death  of  Altieri,  but  Goldoni  still 
stntis  alone.  The  absence  of  any  predecessor  is  expli- 
cable from  the  circumstances  enumerated  at  the  begin- 
ning of  this  chapter  :  the  national  style  of  comedy  was 
not  literary,  and  no  literary  reputation  could  be  built 
upon  or  out  of  it ;  while  those  who  followed  a  different 
path  produced  simply  academic  work  devoid  of  all 
vitality.  Goldoni  broke  the  spell,  and  gave  Italy  a  clas- 
sical form  of  comedy,  which  has  not  indeed  remained 
uncultivated,  but  has  never  since  his  time  been  cultivated 
by  a  master.  He  was  born  at  Venice  in  1707,  and  was 
the  son  of  a  physician.  His  dramatic  tastes  were  in- 
herited from  his  grandfather,  a  Modenese,  and  all  the 
endeavours  of  his  parents  to  direct  his  activity  into  other 
channels  came  to  nothing.  He  was  indeed  educated 
for  a  lawyer,  graduated,  held  at  different  times  a  secre- 
taryship and  a  councillorship,  seemed  to  have  settled 
steadily  down  to  the  practice  of  law,  when  an  unexpected 
invitation  carried  him  off  to  Venice,  and  for  years  he  did 
nothing  but  manage  theatres  and  write  plays,  directing 
all  his  energies  to  supersede  the  national  Comedy  of 
Masks,  and  comedies  of  intrigue  dependent  upon  in- 
tricacy of  plot,  by  representations  of  actual  life  and 
manners.  Many  of  his  best  plays  were  written  in  the 
Venetian  dialect.  At  length  (1761)  umbrage,  as  was 
thought,  at  the  vogue  of  Gozzi's  fairy  dramas  induced 
Goldoni  to  accept  a  royal  invitation  to  Paris,  where 
he  spent  the  remainder  of  his  life  composing  plays  in 
French,  and  writing  his  memoirs  ui  the  same  language. 


GOLDONI 


323 


He  survived  the  downfall  of  the  monarchy,  and  died 
"^  i7^X3»  j"^t  as  the  pension  of  w^hich  he  had  been  de- 
prived was  about  to  be  restored  to  him.  The  first  half 
of  his  life  had  been  full  of  vicissitudes  and  entertaining 
adventures,  agreeably  recounted  in  his  memoirs. 

The  future  master  of  comedy  commenced  his  dramatic 
career  with  a  melodrama,  Amalasiinta^  which  he  burned, 
and  followed  this  up  with  another,  of  whose  success  he 
afterwards   professed    himself    ashamed.      He   was   not 
long,  nevertheless,  in  discovering  his  proper  vocation  ; 
he  inwardly,  and  from  his  point  of  view  rightly — for  he 
could  never  have  been  a  Gozzi — declared  war  against 
the  popular  Comedy  of  Masks,  and  when  a  piece  of  his 
succeeded,  whispered   to  himself,  "  Good,  but  not  yet 
Moliere."     The  great  Frenchman  was  the  object  of  his 
idolatry,  and  justly,  for  not  only  was  Moliere  the  true 
monarch  of  the  comic  stage,  but  his  period  w^as  neither 
too  near  nor  too  remote,  and  his  world  neither  too  like 
nor  unlike  Goldoni's,  for  successful  imitation.     By  1753 
Goldoni's  apprenticeship  was  over,  and  none  but  literary 
enemies  contested  his  title  of  the  Italian  Moliere,  a  title 
confirmed    by   the   suffrage   of    posterity.       Un    Curioso 
AccidcntCy  II  Vero  Amico^  La  Bottcga  del  Caffe^  La  Locan- 
diem,  and  many  other  comedies  that  might  be  named, 
while  true  to  the  manners  of  a  past  age,  retain  all  their 
freshness  in  our  own.     Italian  audiences  yet  take  delight 
in  his  pictures  of  their  ancestors.      *'  One  of  the  best 
theatres  in   Venice,"   says    Symonds,   ^^  is   called   by  his 
name.       His   house   is   pointed    out    by   gondoliers   to 
tourists.      His  statue  stands  almost  within  sight  of  the 
Rialto.    His  comedies  are  repeatedly  given  by  companies 
of  celebrated  actors."      Yet  as  Caesar  called  Terence  a 
halved  Menander,  so  we  may  term  Goldoni  a  halved 


I 


324  ITALIAN  LITERATURE 

Molicre.  The  Menandrine  element  in  Moliere  is  present 
with  him  ;  the  Aristophanic  is  missing.  Goldoni  wants 
the  French  writer's  overpowering  vis  comica,  and  is 
happier  in  '^catching  the  manners  living  as  they  rise" 
than  in  hiying  bare  the  depths  of  the  heart.  Wit,  gaiety, 
elegance,  simpHcity,  truth  to  nature,  skill  in  dramatic 
construction,  render  him  nevertheless  a  most  delightful 
writer,  and  his  fame  is  the  more  assured  from  his  posi- 
tion as  his  country's  sole  eminent  representative  in  the 
region  of  polite  comedy. 

The  eighteenth  century  had  thus  endowed  Italy  with 
dramatic  poets  of  European  reputation,  worthy  to  be 
inscribed  on  the  same  roll  as  Racine  and  Moliere.  All 
(he  varied  dramatic  activity  of  the  Cinque  Cento,  Machia- 
velli's  Mandragola  and  the  two  great  pastoral  dramas  ex- 
cepted, belonging  essentially  to  a  lower  sphere,  fails  to 
counterweigh  the  masterpieces  of  AHieri  and  Goldoni. 
Even  their  achievement,  nevertheless,  did  not  amount 
to  the  creation  of  a  national  drama.  If  tragedy  and 
comedy  can  be  said  to  have  taken  root  at  all,  the  latter 
degenerated,  while  the  former  put  forth  only  sparse 
and  occasional  flowers.  Alheri's  best  plays  continue 
stock-pieces  to  this  extent,  that  they  are  revived  as 
offering  the  most  suitable  opportunities  for  the  display 
of  the  brilliant  histrionic  genius  which  from  time  to  time 
irradiates  the  Italian  stage.  A  succession  of  gifted  men 
^Monti,  Foscolo,  Manzoni,  Pellico,  Niccolini,  Cossa— 
have  continued  the  tradition,  and  on  the  whole  the  state 
of  tragedy  seems  much  the  same  in  Italy  as  in  England. 
Comedy,  on  the  other  hand,  notwithstanding  some  en- 
couraging signs  of  revival,  is  far  from  vigorous,  and  the 
melodrama  which  occupies  the  stage  is  devoid  of  literary 
pretensions.     Under  these  discouraging  circumstances  it 


THE   DRAMA  IN  ITALY 


325 


is  not  perhaps  very  extraordinary,  though  assuredly  it  is 
very  amusing,  that  the  Italian  literati  oi  the  present  day, 
as  reported  by  their  interviewer-general,  Signor  Ojetti, 
should  gravely  pronounce  the  drama  which  they  cannot 
write  a  rudimentary  and  superannuated  form  of  art  in 
comparison  with  the  novel  which  they  can — cin  ucbcr- 
wimdcjier  Standpunkt^  as  would  be  said  in  Germany. 
The  idea  of  modern  romancers  transcending  the  art 
of  Shakespeare  and  Sophocles  is  delightful  from  its 
modesty  ;  but  it  must  be  evident  that  the  short  story 
alone  can  rival  the  artistic  finish  of  a  perfect  drama, 
for  every  romance  on  a  large  scale  must  necessarily 
be  eked  out  by  descriptions,  reflections,  and  episodes 
unessential  to  the  main  action. 

The  cause  of  the  failure  of  the  drama  to  establish  itself 
in  the  land  of  opera  is  certainly  not  to  be  found  in  any 
preference  on  the  part  of  the  public  for  the  tedious 
psychological  analysis  of  the  modern  school  of  fiction 
over  the  rapidity  and  variety  of  the  stage,  but  rather  in 
some  deep-seated  trait  of  the  national  character.  This 
is  most  probably  the  prevailing  sensuousness  of  the 
people — a  term  not  here  used  in  any  disparaging  sense, 
but  as  expressing  the  national  preference  for  the  eye  to 
the  ear.  Scgnius  irritant^  as  an  ancient  Italian  has  it. 
The  shows  of  the  Rappresentazioni  were  undoubtedly 
more  attractive  to  the  Florentine  public  than  the  verses 
w^hich  expounded  them  ;  and  we  have  seen  that  magni- 
ficent scenic  equipments  were  needed  to  bring  the  people 
to  share  the  dramatic  amusements  of  the  courts  of  the 
sixteenth  century.  This  tendency  would  probably  be 
found  to  be  inveterate,  and  to  date  from  the  period 
when  the  Atellan  farces  of  Latium  prefigured  the  Com- 
viedia  ddf  Arte.     It  w^as  not  mere  love  of  bloodshed  that 


22 


326 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE 


made  gladiatorial  shows  popular  at  Rome.  Professor 
Mahaffy  remarks  that  while  the  refinement  of  Terence's 
translations  from  the  Greek  in  comparison  with  Plautus 
attests  tlie  improvement  of  the  taste  of  the  Roman  aris- 
tocracy, ''this  brilliant  success  was  not  popular  with  the 
masses,  and  led  to  no  further  attempts  in  the  same 
direction." 


CHAPTER    XXIII 


THE  REVIVAL 


We  have  seen  that  the  Italy  of  the  eighteenth  century 
had  fully  entered  into  the  general  intellectual  movement 
of  the  rest  of  Europe.  Scarcely  any  trace  remained  of 
the  special  characteristics  of  the  Cinque  Cento  except  the 
imperishable  tradition  of  culture  and  refinement  which 
still  kept  literature  at  a  high  level  of  style.  The  vagaries 
of  the  seventeenth  century  had  passed  without  leaving  a 
trace.  The  prevailing  taste  was  that  of  France.  The 
chief  exception  to  this  polished  uniformity  was  found  in 
the  drama.  On  the  lyrical  stage,  Italy,  favoured  by  the 
musical  capabilities  of  her  language  and  the  superior 
aptitudes  of  her  vocalists,  had  created  something  really 
novel  and  national  ;  and  in  the  allied  realm  of  instru- 
mental music  had  emulated  the  architectural  and  pictorial 
triumphs  of  the  sixteenth  century.  In  tragedy  and  comedy, 
moreover,  she  had  at  length  attained  to  a  semblance  of  a 
national  drama  ;  but  this,  being  the  achievement  of  two 
exceptionally  gifted  men,  who  in  comedy  at  all  events 
left  no  worthy  successors,  was  comparatively  apart  from 
the  national  life,  and  could  not  be  expected  to  prove  an 
important  element  in  the  literary  development  of  the 
future. 

What  Italy  was  at  that  time  as  regards  originality,  she 
has  continued  to  be  until  our  own  day.     While  claiming 


izt 


hihraipy  mfflihm 


3^8 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE 


her  full  share  in  the  conquests  of  science,  and  by  no 
means  behind-hand  in  the  study  of  antiquity,  she  has 
produced  httle  that  can  be  regarded  as  an  absohile 
creation.  Leopardi,  ahke  in  genius  and  art  the  most 
consummate  among  her  men  of  letters,  has  wrought  on 
old  lines,  exalting  the  forms  he  found  to  more  eminent 
perfection.  Manzoni's  innovations  are  chietiy  introduced 
from  beyond  the  Alps.  Carducci  has  rendered  a  price- 
less service  in  repressing  the  language's  tendency  to 
fluent  inanity,  and  has  widely  expanded  its  metrical  capa- 
bilities, but  has  mainly  worked  upon  hints  derived  from 
antique  or  foreign  literatures.  If,  however,  Italy  has 
originated  none  of  the  great  movements  which  have 
transformed  European  literature  since  the  middle  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  she  has  participated  in  them  all.  As 
she  then  fully  associated  herself  w^ith  the  enlightened  and 
humanising  tendencies  of  that  beneficent  if  prosaic  age  ; 
she  has  since  entered  freely  into  the  four  great  move- 
ments which  have  broken  up  eighteenth-century  formality 
and  bought  life  and  liberty  at  the  price  of  intellectual 
disorder— the  naturalistic,  the  sentimental,  the  romantic, 
and  the  revolutionary. 

The  naturalistic  impulse  to  the  living  and  accurate 
description  of  natural  beauty,  and  the  recognition  of  a 
living  spirit  in  Nature,  is  no  modern  phenomenon.  It  is 
present  as  a  vivifying  influence  in  the  classics  and  in  the 
poetry  of  Palestine  and  the  East,  and  even  more  so  in 
Celtic  literature,  where  more  than  anywhere  else  it  ap- 
pears spontaneous  and  exempt  from  literary  manipula- 
tion. Whether  from  a  Celtic  admixture  of  race  or  from 
some  other  reason,  it  seems  among  modern  literatures 
the  more  especial  property  of  the  British.  The  descrip- 
tions  of   Shakespeare   and    Milton,  like   those   of  their 


RETURN  TO  NATURE 


329 


Greek  predecessors,  may  have  been  surpassed  in  the 
minute  elaboration  of  detail,  not  in  truth  or  feeling. 
Spenser  affords  a  still  better  example,  for — the  multitu- 
dinous melodies  of  his  peculiar  stanza  excepted — this  is 
the  one  point  in  w^hich  he  transcends  his  Italian  models. 
In  propriety  of  plan,  in  human  and  dramatic  interest,  in 
terseness  and  polish  of  style,  he  is  greatly  their  inferior; 
but  the  natural  descriptions  of  Ariosto  and  Tasso,  beau- 
tiful as  they  often  are,  fall  far  behind  his  in  rich  warmth 
and  glowing  splendour. 

This  national  gift  fell  into  abeyance  in  the  later  half 
of  the  seventeenth  century :  there  is  scarcely  a  vestige  of  it 
in  Dryden  except  where  he  reproduces  Chaucer.  Thom- 
son's Seasons  mark  its  revival,  and  were  not  without  their 
effect  in  Europe  ;  yet  it  must  be  owned  that  its  modern 
herald  and  hierophant  is  not  a  Briton,  but  a  Swiss  justly 
reckoned  among  French  authors — Jean  Jacques  Rousseau. 
It  was  the  mission  of  this  extraordinary  man  to  inaugu- 
rate not  merely  the  naturalistic,  but  the  sentimental 
movement  also,  which,  taken  up  by  Sterne  and  Goethe, 
filled  Europe  with  imitators,  and,  among  other  con- 
sequences, gave  a  great  impulse  to  the  novel  at  the 
expense  of  the  drama.  Neither  the  description  of  nature 
nor  the  analysis  of  feeling  is  peculiarly  congenial  to  the 
Italian  character,  and  it  may  be  doubted  whether  the 
latter  impulse  would  have  been  very  deeply  felt  but  for 
the  unhappy  political  circumstances  of  the  country, 
which  engendered  among  the  noblest  minds  a  prevailing 
disgust  and  despair  conducive  to  the  diffusion  of  morbid 
sentiment  and  a  generally  mournful  cast  of  thought. 
Both  the  naturalistic  and  the  sentimental  tendencies  in- 
augurated by  Rousseau  found  a  powerful  representative 
in  Ugo  Foscolo. 


330 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE 


The  next  great  development  of  taste  by  which  Italian" 
literature  came  to  be  modified  was  one  with  which  the 
Italian  temperament  has  naturally  so  little  sympathy,  that 
the  influence  which  it  exercised  and  continues  to  exercise 
must  be  regarded  as  a  strong  proof  of  the  susceptibility 
of  Italy  to  all  great  currents  affecting  intellectual  Europe. 
The  romantic  school  is  at  variance  with  all  her  literary 
traditions  and  all  her  canons  of  taste.  Had  it  been 
anything  but  an  exotic,  it  would  have  come  into  being 
centuries  before  among  a  people  rich  in  popular  legends, 
and  whose  history  abounds  with  subjects  adapted  for 
ballad  poetry.  Little,  however,  is  seen  or  heard  of  it 
until,  as  the  cosmopolitan  drift  becomes  more  and  more 
powerful,  Shakespeare,  Goethe,  and  Scott  excite  the  curi- 
osity of  the  Italian  reading  public.  One  reason  for  this 
backwardness  may  be  plausibly  alleged  in  the  absence  of 
Gothic  architecture  from  Italy.  The  earliest  architectural 
remains  were  either  classical  or  Byzantine,  which  passed 
so  easily  into  the  Palladian  and  other  modern  Italian 
styles  as  to  render  Gothic  architecture  in  Italy  little  more 
than  an  episode,  and  to  leave  no  room  for  those  impres- 
sions of  vague  sublimity  and  solemn  grandeur  which 
Gothic  architecture  produces,  and  which  so  naturally 
spring  up  in  the  minds  of  the  inhabitants  of  countries 
covered  like  England  and  Germany  with  ruined  castles 
and  abbeys.  Every  feeling  which  the  artist  of  the 
romantic  school  would  address  is  aroused  by  the  mossed 
keeps  and  mouldering  fanes  of  mediaeval  antiquity. 
Horace  Walpole  may  have  been  a  dilettante  in  archi- 
tecture as  in  literature  ;  nevertheless  the  romantic  school 
in  England  is  inaugurated  by  Strawberry  Hill  and  the 
Castle  of  Otranto;  and  Goethe's  residence  at  Strasburg 
had  much  to  do  with  Goetz  von  Berlichingen.     When,  on 


ROMANTIC  SCHOOL 


331 


the  other  hand,  the  Northern  man  is  initiated  into  the 
beauties  of  Italian  architecture,  his  romantic  feeling  is 
apt  to  wane,  as  he  himself  admits  : 

** '  Tis  not  for  centuries  four  for  nought 
Our  European  world  of  thought 
Hath  made  familiar  to  its  home 
The  classic  mind  of  Greece  and  Rome; 
In  all  new  work  that  would  look  forth 
To  more  than  antiquarian  worthy 
Palladids  pediments  and  bases, 
Or  something  such,  will  find  their  places  : 
Maturcr  optics  don't  delight 
In  childish  dim  religious  light, 
In  evanescent  vague  effects 
That  shirk,  not  face  ^  one's  intellects; 
They  love  not  fancies  just  betrayed. 
And  artful  tricks  of  light  and  shade^ 
But pt^re  form  nakedly  displayed. 
And  all  things  absolutely  made'' 

The  feeling  thus  expressed  by  Clough,  speaking  through 
the  mouth  of  the  Devil,  is  utterly  contrary  to  the  mystic 
awe  and  vague  apprehension  of  infinity  characteristic  of 
romantic  art.     It  is  no  wonder,  therefore,  that  the  move- 
ment engendered  towards  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth 
century   by   impatience  with   the   prosaic   present   and 
reaction  towards  the  neglected  Middle  Age,  favoured  by 
the   moral   atmosphere   created   by   Rousseau,  and   for 
England   and   Germany  so  imperious  a  necessity  that 
Wordsworth,    Scott,  Coleridge,   Novalis   and   Tieck,  all 
romanticists   from   the    cradle,  appeared   in   the  world 
within  three  years,  should  have  been  little  heard  of  in 
Italy  until  Scott  and  Goethe  had  captivated  the  youthful 
genius  of  Manzoni.     Yet  a  streak  of  romantic  light  had 
preceded,  though  from  quite  a  different  quarter,  namely, 


332 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE 


» 


REVOLUTIONARY  TENDENCIES 


333 


Ossian.  If  the  Gaelic  bard's  antiquity  was  questionable, 
he  was  not  the  less  acceptable  to  a  modern  imagination  ; 
and  the  prodigious  success  in  all  European  nations  of 
what  would  have  been  universally  derided  thirty  years 
sooner,  showed  that  new  tastes  and  new  cravings  had  been 
awakened  among  them.  Of  these  Italy  had  her  share,  as 
attested,  towards  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century,  by 
the  vogue  of  the  translation  of  Ossian  by  Cesarotti. 

Not  much  need  be  said  in  this  place  of  the  last  great 
factor  in  the  literary  metamorphosis  to  which  Italy,  in 
common  with  the  rest  of  Europe,  had  to  conform  herself. 
The  Revolution  modified  literature  by  altering  the  en- 
vironment of  men  of  letters,  supplying  them  with  themes 
and  ideas  which  could  not  otherwise  have  come  within 
their  scope,  and  inspiring  them  with  vehement  passions 
according  as  their  circumstances  and  temperaments  led 
them  to  champion  the  new  gospel  or  rally  to  the  ancient 
traditions.  Italy  was  one  of  the  last  countries  to  feel  its 
effects  in  the  literary  sphere,  chiefly  because  the  move- 
ment did  not,  as  elsewhere,  originate  in  the  land  itself, 
but  was  thrust  upon  it  by  an  invader  whose  rapine 
alienated  much  of  the  patriotic  sentiment  that  would 
otherwise  have  welcomed  the  Revolution.  Monti,  the 
first  great  Italian  writer  whose  career  was  powerfully 
affected  by  it,  was  neither  a  revolutionist  nor  an  anti- 
revolutionist,  but  a  straw  in  a  whirlpool.  When,  how- 
ever,  the  idea  of  Italian  unity — Napoleon's  legacy  to  his 
true  native  country—  had  had  time  to  develop  itself,  and 
it  had  become  manifest  that  the  only  path  to  it  lay 
through  a  cordial  adoption  of  revolutionary  principles, 
the  Revolution  acquired  more  practical  significance  for 
Italy  than  for  any  other  country  in  Europe. 

In  a  certain  respect,  Altieri  may  be  considered  as  the 


first  representative  of  both  the  sentimental  and  the 
national  tendencies  in  modern  Italian  literature.  He 
had  denounced  tyranny  and  extolled  liberty  while  the 
Bastille  had  yet  many  years  to  stand  ;  and  if  he  could 
not  write  like  Goethe  or  Rousseau,  he  had  practically 
lived,  and  recorded  in  his  autobiography,  a  life  of 
sentimental  passion.  The  air  of  the  Revolution,  never- 
theless, was  needed  to  bring  these  germs  to  maturity. 
Its  stimulating  influence  is  especially  conspicuous  in  the 
tone  of  Madame  de  Stael's  Coriiinc,  compared  with  that 
of  the  letters  of  Goethe  and  Beckford.  The  Lmdscape 
is  the  same,  but  is  beheld  in  quite  another  light.  Thus 
encouraged  by  general  European  sympathy,  the  revolu- 
tionary and  sentimental  movements  overpower  the 
pliable  Monti,  and  find  a  genuine  representative  in  the 
moody  and  malcontent  Foscolo.  The  romantic  move- 
ment, which  Italy  would  hardly  have  originated  for 
herself,  necessarily  came  later,  and  found  its  leader  in 
Manzoni.  Silvio  Pellico  and  others  acceded,  and  con- 
nected these  currents  of  feeling  with  the  more  decided 
revolutionary  impulse  of  a  later  generation,  typified  in 
Leopardi,  Giusti,  and  Mazzini. 

ViNCEXZO  Monti  (1754-1828)  is  indeed  no  repre- 
sentative of  the  Revolution,  for  the  most  celebrated  of 
his  poems  is  a  denunciation  of  it,  and  although  he  after- 
wards changed  sides,  the  Republic  was  for  him  merely  a 
t:ansition  to  the  Empire.  He  nevertheless  in  a  measure 
personifies  Italy  herself  amid  the  gusts  of  the  revolu- 
tionary tempest,  tossed  to  and  fro  between  contending 
influences,  her  sails  spread  to  the  sky,  her  anchor  still 
cleaving  to  earth.  Born  in  the  district  of  Ferrara,  and 
having  gone  through  the  ordeal,  so  often  exacted  from 
poets,  of  distasteful  law-study,  he  repaired  to  Rome  as 


334 


ITALIAN   LITERATURE 


a  literary  adventurer,  and  by  his  splendid  tercets  on  the 
Beauty  of  Nature  and  other  lyrics  adapted  for  recitation, 
sang  himself  into  the  good  graces  of  the  Papal  court. 
He  took  a  yet  higher  flight  in  his  fine,  rather  lyrical 
than  dramatic,  tragedy  of  Aristodemo  (1787),  as  superior 
to  Alfieri  in  versification  as  inferior  in  virile  energy.  The 
subject  is  one  of  the  most  pathetic,  the  grief  of  a  father 
for  having  slain  his  daughter.  The  Galeotto  Manfredi 
(1788),  partly  inspired  by  private  circumstances,  is  inter- 
esting as  one  of  the  first  Italian  examples  of  romantic 
tragedy.    One  of  the  characters  is  copied  from  lago. 

It  was  not  until  1793  tliat  Monti  took  rank  as  the 
first  epic  poet  of  his  time  by  his  Bassviliiana^  a  poem 
on  the  murder  of  the  PYench  diplomatist  Bassville, 
who  had  perished  in  a  tumult  provoked  by  his  own 
imprudence.  Never  since  the  tentmaker  of  Tarsus  was 
caught  up  into  the  third  heaven  was  an  obscure  person 
elevated  so  mightily  as  this  insignificant  Bassville,  of 
w^hose  remorseful  spirit  Monti's  ardent  imagination 
makes  a  new  Dante,  guided  by  an  angel  to  behold 
the  atrocities  of  the  French  Revolution  as  a  penance 
preliminarv  to  its  entrance  into  Paradise.  In  the  whole 
compass  of  literature  there  is  perhaps  no  other  instance 
of  so  close  and  successful  a  copy  as  Monti's  of  Dante, 
combined  with  so  much  impetuous  vigour,  and  other 
qualities  not  usually  associated  with  imitation.  It  re- 
vealed Monti  as  the  most  ipipressionable  of  poets  in  his 
equal  subjugation  by  Dantesque  influences  and  by  the 
passions  of  the  hour.  Such  a  man  must  needs  move 
with  the  times.  Ere  long  the  Papal  courtier  was  the 
friend  and  guest  of  the  French  generals,  inditing 
thundering  odes  against  superstition  and  fanaticism  ; 
boon  he  held  office  under  the  Cisalpine  Republic,  and 


MONTI 


335 


when  the  Austrians  prevailed  he  fled  to  Paris.  He  came 
back  as  the  courtier  and  flatterer  of  Napoleon ;  and  yet 
this  versatility  seems  less  the  etTect  of  self-interest  than 
of  ductility  of  character,  and  his  countrymen  laugh- 
ingly talked  of  the  three  periods  of  the  abate,  the  citizcji. 
and  the  cavalici^  Monti.  This  sensitiveness  was  service- 
able to  his  lyric  genius,  for  he  thrilled  with  the  emotion 
he  wished  to  express,  and  in  expressing  it  approved 
himself  a  perfect  master  of  language  and  metre. 

In  the  interval  between  Monti's  withdrawal  from 
Rome  and  the  brilliant  position  which  under  the  Im- 
perial auspices  he  acquired  at  Milan,  he  had  produced 
his  ProinctJicus,  one  of  the  finest  examples  of  Italian 
blank  verse,  but  a  curious  mixture  of  things  ancient 
and  modern  ;  his  Musologia,  charming  octaves  on  the 
Muses  ;  Cains  Gracchus,  a  tragedy  betraying  imitation 
of  Shakespeare's  Coriolanus,  celebrated  for  the  force 
of  the  fifth  act ;  Maschcroniajia,  a  palinode  for  the 
Bassvilliana,  notwithstanding  the  art  with  which  the 
poet  manages  to  assert  his  consistency.  Disfigured  as 
it  is  by  adulation  of  Napoleon  and  senseless  abuse  of 
England,^  this  is  perhaps  Monti's  finest  poem.  It  is  the 
offspring  of  a  genuine  poetic  cestruin,  which  whirls  the 
stiilf  of  a  party  pamphlet  into  ^iublimity,  like  a  rag  in  a 
hurricane.  It  was  never  finished.  Incomplete  too  is 
\\\(i  Bard  of  ihc  Black  Forest,  a  poem  on  Napoleon's  ex- 
ploits, unequal  to  the  subject,  but  remarkable  for  its 
concise  rapidity  of  expression.  Monti  was  now  Napo- 
leon's official  laureate  for  the  Italian  department,  and  it 
is  suffidently  amusing  to  find  him  expressing  his  appre- 
hensions lest  he  should  be  so  far  carried  away  by  his 

^  "  Impatient  to  put  out  the  only  lii^ht 

OJ Liberty  iliat  yet  rcnunns  on  Eart/iJ'' — Wordsworth. 


i|HljMjtiMli^ggttMiiiffiMigHiii^^Mili 


ttjumatumuMmMii 


33<^ 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE 


patriotism  as  to  offend  the  reigning  powers,  and  breath- 
ing a  superfluous  prayer  for  prudence  in  his  vocation. 
Tlicre  was  little  danger  ;  patriotism,  though  a  genuine, 
v.as  a  weaker  emotion  with  him  than  respect  for  digni- 
ties, as  he  sumciently  evinced  by  Iiis  obedience  to  the 
Austrian  mandate  to  celebrate  the  expulsion  of  the 
French,  although  he  never  abased  himself  so  far  as  to 
assail  Napoleon.  He  lost  his  office  of  lustoriographer, 
and  retiring  into  private  life,  devoted  himself  mainly  to 
critical  and  philological  work.  He  had  a  short  time 
previously  published  a  translation  of  the  lliady  com- 
menced in  1790,  highly  admired  by  his  countrymen,  and 
certainly  a  remarkable  performance  when  it  is  considered 
that  he  scarcely  knew  a  word  of  Greek  ;  whence  Foscolo 
wittily  called  him  gran  tmduttor  dci  tradiittor  d Omero, 
So  much  more  important  to  the  translator  is  flexibility  of 
mind  than  exactness  of  scholarship.  Monti's  later  days, 
now  embittered  by  controversies  and  pecuniary  embar- 
rassments, mitigated  by  the  generosity  of  friends,  now 
bri^^htened  by  successful  work  on  his  unfinished  Feronia, 
a  youthful  production  in  which  he  had  celebrated  the 
draining  of  the  I^ontme  marshes,  or  by  the  production 
of  some  fine  lyric,  pa>sed  on  the  whole  tranquilly  until 
his  death  in  1828  from  the  effects  of  a  paralytic  stroke. 

The  eloquent  but  unspeculative  Monti  had  nothing  to 
teach  but  his  almost  inimitable  art  of  verbal  expression, 
and  hence  has  founded  no  school.  His  reputation  has  de- 
clined, chiefly  from  the  ephemeral  character  of  the  themes 
on  which  his  genius  was  expended,  and  of  which  none  but 
himself  could  have  made  so  much.  He  can  hardly  be 
called  a  great  poet,  if  for  no  other  reason  than  that  his 
impressionable  imagination  wanted  tenacity ;  he  tired  of 
his  own  works,  and  left  the  majority  of  them  incomplete. 


MONTI 


337 


He  is  nevertheless  a  brilliant  phenomenon,  the  more 
interesting  from  the  decidedly  national  stamp  of  his 
genius.  He  has  Southern  demonstrativeness  and  volu- 
bility, and  kindles  like  a  meteor  by  his  own  flight  ;  when 
thoroughly  fired,  whether  in  epic  or  lyric,  he  is  almost 
an  improvisatore.  Improvisation  in  an  English  poet 
would  seem  a  tour  deforce  at  best,  but  it  appears  natural 
to  the  quick  intelligence  and  musical  speech  of  Italy. 

Monti  is  thus  a  representative  of  his  nation,  and  is  no 
less  true  to  the  general  spirit  of  his  epoch  :  classic  in 
aspiration,  modern  in  sentiment,  related  to  the  Greeks 
much  as  Canova  was  related  to  Phidias.  He  was  no 
interpreter  of  his  age,  but  a  faithful  mirror  of  its  succes- 
sive phases,  and  endowed  with  the  rare  gift  of  sublimity 
to  a  degree  scarcely  equalled  by  any  contemporary  ex- 
cept Goethe,  Byron,  and  Shelley.  The  descriptions  in  the 
Mascheroneidc  of  Napoleon's  descent  upon  Italy,  and  of 
the  inundation  of  the  Po,  if  not  perfect  models  of  taste, 
are  almost  Lucretian  in  their  stormy  and  tumultuous 
grandeur.  The  frequent  poverty,  or  at  least  shallowness 
of  his  thought  is  veiled  by  splendid  diction  ;  and  in  tact 
and  felicity  of  encomium  he  recalls  Dryden,  wiiom  he 
so  strongly  resembles  in  the  character  of  many  of  his 
compositions,  the  versatility  of  his  conduct,  and  the  cir- 
cumstances of  his  life.  A  further  analogy  may  be  found 
in  the  eminence  of  both  as  critics,  Monti's  disquisitions 
on  Dante  and  the  Cruscan  vocabulary  constituting  as 
important  a  portion  of  his  work  as  Dryden's  prefaces  of 
his.  His  dialogues,  chiefly  between  deceased  authors 
and  grammarians  recalled  from  the  shades  to  discuss 
philological  questions,  are  charming  for  their  elegance 

and  grace. 

Ugo  Foscolo  (1778-1827),  the  second  eminent  poet  of 


338 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE 


FOSCOLO 


339 


the  revolutionary  period,  successively  Monti's  champion 
and  his  adversary,  is  in  most  respects  a  violent  contrast 
to  him.  It  would  have  been  well  had  he  been  merely 
his  complement.  Monti's  pliant  character  greatly  needed 
an  infusion  of  vi^^our  and  independence  ;  but  Foscolo, 
though  a  self-restrained  artist  in  his  poems,  in  his  life 
required  the  curb  as  much  as  Monti  required  the  spur. 
Worse,  his  tempestuous  vehemence  and  crabbed  in- 
docility  were  no  tokens  of  real  strength  ;  he  was  at 
bottom  weak  and  whimsical,  the  slave  of  passion,  physical 
and  intellectual.  His  countrymen,  nevertheless,  have 
forgotten  his  faults  and  follies  for  the  sake  of  his  un- 
tarnished patriotism,  most  unjustly  suspected  in  his  own 
day ;  he  is  the  first  very  distinguished  modern  Italian 
w^hose  consistency  in  this  particular  is  a  source  of  national 
joy  and  pride.  Alfieri's  resentment  against  the  French, 
though  sufficiently  excusable,  blinded  him  to  the  real 
tendency  of  his  times  ;  other  well-meaning  men  were 
either  too  intimately  associated  with  the  temporary 
makeshift  of  the  despotic  Empire,  or  too  amenable  to 
clerical  pressure.  Foscolo  was  untainted  by  either  in- 
fluence, and  might  be  deemed  not  only  absolved  but 
canonised  by  his  countrymen  when  Garibaldi  made  a 
pilgrimage  to  his  tomb  at  Chiswick,  and  when,  in  1871, 
his  remains  were  transferred  to  the  cemetery  at  Florence, 
the  inspiration  of  the  most  famous  of  his  poems. 

Alike  in  personal  character  and  the  quality  of  his  pro- 
ductions, Foscolo  may  be  compared  with  Landor,  but 
with  the  capital  distinction  that  Landor  was  a  man  of  the 
past,  and  Foscolo,  for  all  his  Greek  erudition  and  classical 
enthusiasm,  a  man  of  his  own  time.  His  romance, 
Jacopo  Ortls  (1798),  perhaps  the  most  celebrated  of  his 
productions,  is  a  reminiscence   of    Wcrthcr  and  a  fore- 


■ii 


I 


'S 


runner  of  Rene,  but  adds  to  the  merely  personal  sorrow 
of  these  tragic  autobiographies  the  nobler  motive  of 
despair  at  the  ruin  and  enslavement  of  the  hero's  country. 
F()sct>lo,  though  born  at  Zante,  was  prouder  of  his 
Venetian  descent  than  of  his  Greek  nativity,  and  the 
ignominious  end  of  so  glorious  a  history  as  the  Republic's 
not  unnaturally  or  ignobly  drove  him  to  despair.  At 
the  same  time  he  was  usually  under  the  spell  of  some 
w^oman  ;  one  of  his  genuine  letters,  indeed,  written  at  a 
much  later  date,  surpasses  his  romance  in  the  eloquence 
of  unhappy  passion.  Both  motives  combine  to  drive 
Ortis  to  suicide.  Apart  from  its  impressive  style,  the 
book  is  weak  and  unwholesome,  but  it  powerfully  depicts 
an  unquestionable  tendency  of  the  age,  and  as  such  has  a 
right  to  live,  apart  from  its  influence  on  Leopardi,  George 
Sand,  and  other  more  recent  writers  of  genius.  Foscolo's 
melancholy,  fretful  and  egotistic  as  it  is,  is  not  pessimism; 
it  is  not  grounded  in  the  nature  of  things,  but  is  always 
remediable  by  a  change  in  external  circumstances. 

Unlike  the  exuberant  Monti,  Foscolo  wrote  little 
poetry,  but  his  scanty  production  is  of  choice  quality. 
His  most  celebrated  poem  is  the  Sepolcri  (1807),  which 
in  style  and  subject  bears  a  remarkable  resemblance 
to  the  finest  poem  America  has  yet  given  to  the  world, 
Bryant's  Thanatopsis,  The  American  poet  has  conceived 
his  work  in  a  larger  and  grander  spirit,  and  consequently 
surpasses  Foscolo  in  the  sublimity  of  his  thought,  though 
the  hitter's  poem  is  longer  and  adorned  with  episodes, 
and  in  merit  of  execution  there  may  be  little  to  choose. 
Bryant  dwells  on  the  majesty  of  death  ;  Foscolo  on  the 
reverence  due  to  the  tomb,  and  the  immortality  of  the 
memories  of  the  great — a  fine  theme  undoubtedly,  and 
deserving  of  the  monumental  eloquence  with  which  he 


^■'■^''■•^•■■^'^'^mfflfllllfterliltf*"'^^  -.■gj^t..M,-»a»,«^».- . 


340 


ITALIAN   LITERATURE 


has  adorned  it,  but  small  if  measured  against  Bryant's. 
Foscolo's  other  most  considerable  poetical  composition, 
his  Hynnis  to  the  Graces,  celebrated  as  the  beneficent 
spirits  of  CiTcecc,  Italy,  and  an  ideal  world,  was  long  but 
an  aggregation  of  fragments,  and  was  recovered  as  a 
whole  only  in  1856.  The  fastidious  author  could  never 
satihfy  himsL^lf,  and  the  result  is  a  production  more  re- 
markable for  high  polish  than  warmth  of  poetic  feeling. 
It  is  just  such  a  poem  as  Landor  might  have  written. 
Foscolo's  tragedies,  Ajax  and  Ricciarday  are  fine  compo- 
sitions in  the  spirit  of  Altieri  :  the  former,  notwithstand- 
ing its  classical  theme,  has  a  relation  to  contemporary 
circumstances,  Moreau  being  depicted  as  Ajax,  and 
Bonaparte  as  Agamemnon.  The  few  minor  poems  of 
Foscolo  are  admirable,  full  of  weighty  lines  that  imprint 
themselves  on  the  memory.  As  a  critic  he  accomplished 
more  than  it  will  be  easy  to  accomplish  after  him,  coming 
just  at  the  moment  when  Europe,  weary  of  the  superficial 
aesthetics  of  the  eighteenth  century,  was  anxiously  look- 
ing for  a  guide  to  the  spirit  of  the  past.  It  is  as  much 
by  this  happy  fortune  as  by  their  intrinsic  merit  that  his 
essays  mark  an  era  in  the  literary  history  of  Dante, 
Petrarch,  Tasso,  and  Boccaccio. 

Foscolo's  agitated  life  has  afforded  matter  for  many  bio- 
graphers, but  the  essential  facts  lie  in  narrow  compass. 
Born  in  Zante  of  mixed  Venetian  and  Greek  parentage, 
he  early  sought  Venice,  and  learned  the  secret  of  literary 
s' vie  from  Cesarotti,  the  translator  of  Ossian.  The  shame- 
ful  extinction  of  the  Venetian  Republic  by  France  and 
Austria  combined  with  his  own  ill-regulated  passions  to 
make  him  write  Jacopo  Ortis  and  talk  of  imitating  his 
suicidal  hero.  A  spell  of  military  service,  partly  at  the 
siege  of  Genoa,  par'Jy  in  the  army  desti::ed  for  the  in- 


PINDEMONTE 


341 


vasion  of  England,  went  far  to  cure  him,  and  he  spent 
several  years  as  a  man  of  letters  at  Milan,  translating 
Homer,  composing  his  tragedies,  and  too  much  engaged 
in  unedifying  literary  quarrels  for  his  own  dignity  or  the 
credit  of  letters.  He  showed  an  honourable  independ- 
ence in  rejecting  the  bribes  offered  to  induce  him  to 
adulate  Napoleon,  and,  equally  spurning  the  proffered 
subvention  of  the  Austrian  Government,  became  an  exile 
at  the  overthrow  of  the  Empire.  He  ultimately  took 
refuge  in  England,  exchanged,  he  might  have  boasted, 
for  Byron.  Here  he  was  warmly  received  in  aristocratic 
as  well  as  literary  circles,  and  might  have  performed  a 
distinguished  part.  But  his  extravagance  and  his  irre- 
gular habits  wore  out  his  friends'  patience,  though  Mr. 
Smiles  says  :  "  Ugo  Foscolo  lived  to  the  end  of  his  life 
surrounded  by  all  that  was  luxurious  and  beautiful." 
If  so,  Hudson  Gurney,  who  raised  his  tomb,  must  have 
given  him  bread  as  well  as  a  stone.  He  was  also 
affectionately  tended  by  his  natural  daughter,  whose 
mother  was  an  Englishwoman.  He  died  in  September 
1827.  Some  of  his  best  critical  work  belongs  to  this 
last  period,  and  a  valuable  correspondence  from  English 
friends  is  understood  to  be  awaiting  publication.  His 
own  letters  are  admirable,  full  of  life  and  movement. 

Little  as  Ippolito  Pindemonte  (1754-1825)  resembled 
Foscolo  either  as  an  author  or  as  a  man,  their  names  are 
frequently  associated  on  account  of  Pindemonte's  reply 
to  Foscolo's  Sepolcri,  a  fine  poem  breathing  the  spirit  of 
resignation  and  tranquillity,  for  which  his  gloomy  prede- 
cessor had  left  him  abundant  scope.  Pindemonte's  best 
production,  however,  is  his  Antonio  Foscarzni,  a  true  tale 
of  unhappy  love,  recited  with  great  pathos  in   elegant 

octaves.     He  is  a  kind  of  Italian  Cowper,  a  gentle  and 
23 


342 


ITALIAN   LITERATURE 


amiable  valetudinarian.  Like  Cowper,  he  san^  country 
life,  and  touched  the  events  and  the  manners  of  his  times 
in  a  strain  of  soft  elci^iac  melancholy  ;  like  Cowper,  too, 
he  translated  Homer.  He  holds  no  such  important 
position  in  Italian  as  Cowper  docs  in  English  literature, 
bat  represents  the  huge  class  of  his  fellows-citizens  who, 
carrying  the  spirit  of  the  eighteenth  century  into  the 
nineteenth,  were  rather  ornamental  than  useful  to  their 
country. 

Monti  and  Foscolo,  with  all  their  genius,  could  not 
escape  the  influence  of  their  times.  In  the  F'rench  and 
Italian  literature  of  the  Imperial  period,  and  still  more 
in  its  art,  a  certain  pseudo-classical  affectation  is  visible. 
Sublimity  and  grace  are  attained  indeed,  but  there  is 
something  mannered  about  the  one,  and  something  fas- 
tidious about  the  other.  The  reigning  taste  required  to 
be  brought  nearer  to  Nature,  and  the  writer  who  could 
effect  this  was  sure  to  mark  an  epoch  in  the  literature 
of  his  country.  The  mission  was  discharged  by  Ales- 
SAXDRO  Maxzoni  (1785-1873),  a  man  who  announces  a 
new^  departure  in  many  ways,  and  whose  historical  signi- 
ficance, even  more  than  his  fine  genius,  places  him  above 
the  still  more  gifted  Leopardi  at  the  head  of  the  Italian 
literature  of  the  Ijrst  half  of  the  nineteenth  century.  From 
on^  point  of  viev;  he  signalises  the  invasion  of  the  roman- 
tic spirit.  Goethe,  Byron,  Shakespeare,  Scott  are  more 
to  him  than  the  old  Italian  masters.  From  another, 
he  founds  the  Neo-Catholic  school,  and  personifies  the 
revival  of  the  religious  spirit  in  its  most  gentle  and 
edifying  form.  Monti  and  Foscolo  had  been  sceptics  ; 
Manzoni  is  devout,  while  at  the  same  time  there  is  no- 
thing grotesque  in  his  mediicvalism,  and  he  keeps  the 
spher'^s  of  religion  and  politics  so  apart  as  to  be  able 


MANZONI 


343 


to  hail  the  dow^nfall  of  the  temporal  power.  Yet,  again, 
he  is  a  reformer  of  the  language,  and  the  first  to  form 
a  style  equally  acceptable  to  his  cultured  and  to  his 
unlettered  countrymen. 

The  hero  of  these  various  achievements  was  singularly 
unlike  the  usual  type  of  great  renovators  and  innovators. 
Such  epoch  -  making  personages  rarely  w^ant  for  self- 
assertion.  Manzoni  was  a  gentle,  undemonstrative  man, 
though  observant  of  others  and  not  ignorant  of  his  owm 
worth,  and  capable  of  sarcasm  on  occasion  ;  a  valetudi- 
narian, whose  dread  of  crowds  frequently  confined  him 
to  his  house,  who  made  no  display,  mounted  no  rostrum, 
and  ceased  to  wiite  at  forty.  Hence,  though  I Promessi 
Sposi  is  probably  more  widely  known  than  any  Italian 
book  after  the  Divina  Commediaj  the  author  has  failed  to 
personally  impress  the  European  imagination,  and  ap- 
pears a  mere  shadow  in  comparison  wdth  Victor  Hugo 
or  even  Lamartine,  neither  of  whom,  notwithstanding 
their  infinitely  greater  productiveness,  so  profoundly 
influenced  the  literature  of  their  country.  Born  at 
Milan,  Manzoni  was  an  Austrian  subject,  and,  though 
a  true  patriot,  shunned  to  offend  the  ruling  powers. 
He  led  the  life  of  a  respectable  Italian  gentleman  of 
moderate  fortune,  at  one  time  greatly  impaired  by  his 
father's  extravagance,  and  basked  for  nearly  half  a 
century  in  the  tranquil  enjoyment  of  European  fame, 
which,  after  the  success  of  /  Promessi  Sposi^  he  im- 
perilled by  no  further  venture.  **  Formerly,"  he  said 
in  excuse,  ^^the  Muse  came  after  me,  now^  I  should 
have  to  go  after  her."  The  events  of  1848  failed  to 
draw  him  from  his  retirement ;  when  the  unity  of 
Italy  w\as  accomplished  he  accepted  public  honours, 
hvX  declined  public  duties  ;  none  criticised  his  inaction, 


344 


ITALIAN   LITERATURE 


for  all  felt  that  he  had  done  his  best  by  Italy.  His 
death  at  the  age  of  eighty-eight  evoked  such  a  unani- 
mitv  of  sentiment  as  has  perhaps  accompanied  that 
of  no  great  author  of  modern  times  except  Sir  Walter 
Scott.  Goethe  had  hostile  detractors.  Settembrini  and 
the  few  others  who  presumed  to  criticise  Manzoni  urged 
their  scruples  in  a  spirit  of  becoming  reverence. 

Manzoni's  claim  to  this  universal  veneration  was  three- 
fold. In  the  first  place,  he  was  really  a  great  writer  ;  in 
the  second,  he  was  the  standard-bearer  of  Italian  literature, 
the  one  contemporary  author  of  his  nation  who  could  be 
named  along  with  Goethe  and  Byron  ;  thirdly  and  chiefly, 
he  represented  the  most  important  intellectual  movement 
of  the  post-Napoleonic  age,  the  romantic  and  mediaeval 
reaction  —  a  necessity,  for  justice  demanded  it.  The 
Middle  Age  w^as  indeed  no  model  for  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury, as  the  romanticists  and  reactionaries  thought,  but  it 
did  possess  elements  indispensable  for  the  enrichment  of 
the  national  life  ;  and  although  the  Italian  mind  was  pro- 
bably less  in  harmony  with  these  than  the  mind  of  any 
other  people,  no  Italian  could  forget  that  the  greatest 
of  his  countrymen  was  also  the  greatest  and  most  re- 
presentative writer  of  the  Middle  Ages.  It  liad  been 
one  of  ^Monti's  chief  merits  to  have  emulated  and  re- 
vived the  style  of  Dante,  to  the  disgust  of  Pope  Pius  VI., 
who  asked  him  whv  on  earth  he  could  not  write  like 
Metastasio.  After  the  form  came  the  spirit  of  the 
])ivi}ie  Comedy^  commended  to  the  nation  by  the  mis- 
fortunes and  deceptions  which  succeeded  the  fall  of 
Napoleon,  when  the  exile  of  Florence  appeared  more 
than  ever  a  symbol  of  his  country.  The  worshippers 
of  Dante  were  indeed  divided,  some  seeing  in  him  the 
Ghibelline,  the  enemy  of  the  temporal  power  no  less  than 


MANZONFS  LYRICS 


345 


I 


I 


of  the  foreigner  ;  others,  the  apostle  of  mediaeval  Catho- 
licism. Both  views  were  right  and  both  wrong,  and  the 
choice  between  them  was  merely  a  matter  of  tempera- 
ment, but  the  latter  was  the  more  likely  to  be  propa- 
gated by  the  air  of  the  time. 

The  gentle  and  modest  Manzoni  obeyed  the  more 
potent  influence.  In  1812  he  began  to  produce  his 
hymns,  mostly  on  the  festivals  of  the  Church,  which 
perhaps  suggested  Keble's  Christian  Year.  They  were 
published  in  181 5,  but  the  finest,  that  for  Whitsunday, 
is  a  later  addition.  They  attracted  little  attention 
until  the  appearance  of  his  famous  ode  on  the  death 
of  Napoleon,  //  Cinque  Maggioy  which,  appearing  at 
the  right  '^psychological  moment,"  at  a  time  when 
every  man  felt  almost  as  an  intimate  of  the  great  con- 
queror who  had  made  so  large  a  portion  of  l.i'.  own 
existence,  took  Italy  and  Europe  by  storm.  The  note 
of  personal  compassion  which  pervades  it  was  then  in 
place,  but  now  that  Napoleon's  exploits  and  disasters  are 
ancient  history,  and  he  is  chiefly  regarded  as  a  great 
world-shaker  and  incarnate  elemental  force,  we  feel  the 
need  of  a  deeper  insight  and  a  wider  sweep.  Even 
Manzoni's  fire  and  eloquence,  vivid  as  they  are,  scarcely 
rival  Lamartine's  on  the  same  subject.  A  patriotic  poem 
of  equal  power,  the  ode  on  the  march  of  the  Piedmontese 
volunteers  to  succour  the  Lombards  in  182 1,  imaginary 
as  fact,  but  veracious  as  prophecy,  has  suffered  less, 
or  indeed  nothing,  from  the  lapse  of  time,  expressing 
the  deepest  feelings  of  every  Italian  heart  now  as  then. 
Though  composed  in  1821,  it  was  not  so  much  as  written 
down  until  1848,  from  apprehension  of  the  Austrian 
police.  No  less  fine  are  the  lyrics  in  Manzoni's  tra- 
gedies, the  Carmagnola  (1820)  and  the  Adelchi  (1822). 


346 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE 


These  dramas  themselves  mark  an  epoch  in  ItaHan 
literary  history,  not  so  much  from  their  absolute  merit, 
as  from  being  the  first  attempt  to  adapt  Shakespearian 
methods  to  the  Italian  drama.      Alfieri  and  Monti  had 
adhered  to  the   classical   school  ;    IVIanzoni  struck    into 
a   new  path,   and   by  so   doing  revealed    a    new    world 
to   his   countrymen,   little   as    it   followed   that   the    old 
world    need    be    entirely    forsaken.       The     Carmagnola 
depicts    the   condottieri    of    the    fifteenth    century,    the 
Adelchi  the  Lombards  of  the  eighth.     The  latter  is  the 
more  dramatic,  and  the  two  principal  characters,  Adelchi 
and  Ermengarda,  are  depicted  with  extreme  beauty  and 
power.     The  pieces,  however,  are  rather  dramatic  poems 
than  plays,  and  rise  highest  wliere  there  is  most  scope 
for   poetry.      Martin    the    I )eacon's    description    of   his 
journey  in  the  Adelchi,  for  instance,  so  finely  translated 
by  Mr.  W.  D.  Howells,  is  magnilicent,  but   on  a  scale 
disproportioned  to   the    play.      The    fire    and    spirit  of 
the    two    martial    lyrics    in    the    Carmagnola    and    the 
Adelchi  respectively  are    marvellous;    "their  wonderful 
plunging  metre,"  it   has  been  said,  "suggests  a  charge 
of  horses."     That  in  tlie  Adelchi  should  alone  vindicate 
Manzoni    against    the    accusation    of    unpatriotic    hike- 
warmness.      It  paints  the  lot   of  the    Italian   people   of 
the  eighth   century,  transferred  by  the  fortune   of   war 
from    a    Lombard    master  to   a   Frank,   who   unite   to 
oppress  them,  and  nothing  can   be  more  evident  than 
the  contemporary  application   to   Italian,  Austrian,  and 
Frenchman.     The  following  slightly  abridged  version  is 
by  Miss  Ellen  Gierke  : 

"  From  moss- covered  ruin  of  edifice  nameless^ 
From  forests,  from  furnaces  idle  and fiameless. 

From  furrows  bedewed  with  the  sweat  of  the  slave^ 


THE  ADELCHI  347 

A  people  dispersed  doth  arouse  and  awaken, 
With  senses  all  straininj^  and  fulses  all  shaken, 
At  a  sound  of  strange  cla7nour  that  swells  like  a  wave. 

In  visages  pallid,  and  eyes  dim  and  shrouded. 

As  blinks  the  pale  sun  through  a  welkin  beclouded. 

The  might  of  their  fathers  a  moment  is  seen; 
In  eye  and  i?i  countenance  doubtfully  blending. 
The  shame  of  the  present  seems  dumbly  contending 

With  pride  in  the  thought  of  a  past  that  hath  been. 

Now  they  gather  in  hope  to  disperse  panic-stricken. 
And  in  tortuous  7vays  their  pace  slacken  or  quicken. 

As,  Hivixt  longing  and  fear,  they  advance  or  sta?td  stilly 
Casing  once  and  again  where,  despairifig  and  scattered, 
The  host  of  their  tyrants  files  broken  and  shattered 

From  the  wrath  of  the  swords  that  are  drinking  their  fill. 

As  wolves  that  the  hunter  hath  cowed  and  subjected. 
Their  hair  on  their  hides  in  dire  horror  erected. 

So  these  to  their  covert  distractedly  fiy  ; 
And  hope  springs  anew  in  the  breast  of  the  peasant ; 
O'ertakijtg  the  future  in  joy  of  the  present. 

He  deems  his  chain  broken,  and  broken  for  aye. 

Nay,  hearken  /      Yon  heroes  in  victory  warring. 
From  refuge  and  rescue  the  routed  debarring. 

By  path  steep  and  rugged  have  come  from  afar^ 
Forsaking  the  halls  of  their  festive  carousing, 
Frojn  downy  repose  on  soft  couches  arousing, 

In  haste  to  obey  the  shrill  summons  of  ivar. 

They  have  left  in  their  castles  their  wives  broken-hearted^ 
Who,  striving  to  part,  still  refused  to  be  parted. 

With  pleadings  and  warnings  that  died  on  the  tongue. 
The  war-dinted  helmet  the  brow  hath  surmou7ited. 
And  soon  the  dark  chargers  are  saddled  a?td  mounted, 

And  hollow  the  bridge  to  their  gallop  hath  rung. 

« 

From  land  unto  land  they  have  speeded  and  fleeted, 
With  lips  that  the  lay  of  the  soldier  repeated, 
But  hearts  that  have  harboured  their  home  and  its  bowers. 


IM^Sgg^MUijiMi 


348 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE 


They  have  watched,  they  hai'e  starved,  by  grim  discipline  driven^ 
And  hauberk  and  he/ m  haiu*  been  battered  and  riven, 
And  arrows  around  t'lcn:  have  whistled  in  showers. 

And  deem  ye,  poor  fools  /  that  the  meed  and  the  guerdon 
That  lured  from  afar  were  to  lighten  your  burden, 

}  \nir  wrongs  to  abolish,  your  fate  to  reverse  f 
Go  .'  back  to  the  wrecks  of  your  palaces  stately, 
To  the  forges  whose  glow  ye  extinguished  so  lately, 

To  the  f eld  ye  have  tilled  in  the  sweat  of  your  curse  ! 

The  victor  and  vanquished,  in  amity  knitted. 
Have  doubled  the  yoke  to  your  shoulders  refitted; 

One  tyrant  had  quelled  you,  and  now  ye  have  twain. 
They  cast  forth  the  lot  for  the  serf  and  the  cattle. 
They  throne  on  the  sods  that  yet  bleed  from  their  battle. 

And  the  soil  and  the  hind  are  their  servants  againP 

If  Manzoni  was  surpassed  as  a  dramatist  and  equalled 
as  a  lyrist  by  others  among  his  countrymen,  he  has 
hitherto  found  no  competitor  as  a  novelist.  /  Promcssi 
Sposi  (1825)  was  the  first  i^reat  ItaHan  romance,  and  it 
remains  the  greatest.  It  would  be  difficult  to  transcend 
its  capital  merits,  the  beauty  and  truth  of  description, 
the  interest  of  its  leading  characters,  and  its  perfect 
fidelity  to  life,  if  not  in  every  respect  to  the  place  and 
period  where  and  when  the  scene  is  laid — Milan  under 
the  dreary  Spanish  rule  of  the  seventeenth  century — yet 
to  the  universal  feelings  and  instincts  of  humanity.  As 
a  picture  of  human  nature  the  book  is  above  criticism  ; 
it  is  just  the  tact,  neitlier  more  nor  less.  "  It  satisfies  us," 
said  Goethe,  "like  perfectly  ripe  fruit."  It  has,  not- 
withstanding, a  weak  side,  which  Goethe  did  not  fail  to 
point  out — the  prominence  of  the  historical  element,  and 
the  dryness  with  which  the  writer  exhibits  his  authorities, 
instead  of  dissolving  them  in  the  flow  of  his  narrative. 
The  German  translator,"  said  Goethe,  "  must  get  rid 


a 


I   PROMESSI  SPOSI 


349 


I 


of  a  great  part  of  the  war  and  the  famJne,  and  two-thirds 
of  the  plague."  Other  objections  to  Manzoni's  romance 
refer  to  its  real  or  supposed  tendencies,  which  leave  its 
artistic  merits  unaffected.  It  may  be  granted  that  pane- 
gyrics upon  Cardinal  Federigo  Borromeo,  howv,ver  just, 
were  hardly  seasonable  when  the  Pope  was  the  fast  ally 
of  the  Austrian  ;  and  Manzoni  did  still  worse  by  his 
country  when  (1819)  he  wTote  a  treatise  on  Catholic 
Morals,  unexceptionable  when  there  should  be  no  more 
question  of  the  Temporal  Power.  But  he  then  cherished 
generous  illusions  which  he  was  ultimately  obliged  to 
renounce  ;  though  never  parting  with  one  of  the  leading 
and  most  remarkable  features  of  I  Promcssi  Sposi,  its 
sympathy  with  the  poor  and  lowly.  It  is  a  remarkable 
proof  of  the  difficulties  of  style  which  beset  the  Italian 
author,  that  Manzoni  found  it  necessary  to  give  his 
romance  a  thorough  revision  to  bring  its  diction  nearer 
to  the  Tuscan  standard.  His  other  prose  works  com- 
prise, the  Coluimi  of  Infamy,  an  historical  appendix  to 
/  Promcssi  Sposi,  Letters  on  IZomanticism,  an  able  polemic 
on  behalf  of  the  romantic  school,  and  Letters  on  the 
I  ^nities  of  Time  and  Place,  demonstrating  that  the  unity 
of  action  is  the  only  unity  which  need  be  regarded  by 
the  dramatist. 

The  success  of  /  L^romessi  Sposi  could  not  but  create 
a  school  of  historical  novelists  in  Italy,  whose  works 
probably  effected  more  for  the  propagation  of  Italian 
literature  beyond  the  Alps  than  those  of  any  writer  ex- 
cept Manzoni  himself.  The  Marco  Viscouti  of  Tommaso 
Grossi,  the  Ettorre  Fieramosca  of  Massimo  d'Azeglio,  the 
AlargJierita  Pusterla  of  Cesare  Cantii,  are  romances  of 
great  merit,  but,  as  the  author  of  one  of  them  exclaims, 
"  How  far  wt  are  behind  Manzoni !" 


i 


:35o 


ITALIAN   LITERATURE 


Little  as  any  anti-national  motive  can  be  attributed  to 
the   Adclchi,   it   is    true    that    Manzoni's    patriotism   was 
chiefly  evinced  in  his  lyrics,  and  that  he  was  not  pro- 
minent MS  a  patriotic  dramatist.     This  part  was  reserved 
for  (iiovAXXi  Battista  Xiccolixi  (i782-i8ln).    In  times 
of  trial  and  distress  the  measure  of  service  is  apt  to  be 
the  measure  of  applause,  and  popular  gratitude  may  for 
a  time  have  exalted  Niccolini's  tragedies  to  a  higlier  level 
than  that  due  to  their  strictly  literary  desert.     They  are 
nevertheless  hue  productions,  and  the  most  patriotic  are 
usually  the  best.     Arnaldo  di  Brescia,  too  bold  an  apo- 
theosis of  the  fiery  monk  who  defied  the  Papacy  in  the 
twelfth  century  to  be  printed  in  Italy  for  many  years  after 
its   appearance   in    France,   is   the   most   poetical,  but  is 
neither  intended  nor  adapted   for  the   stage.     Notwith- 
standing  its  historical  subject,   this   mighty  tragedy,  as 
Mr.  W.  D.  Howells,  the  translator  of  some  of  its  linest 
passages,   not    unjustly  terms    it,   is    an    idealistic  work. 
The  other  dramas,  taken  from  history,  and  representing 
such  crises  in  Italian  story  as  the  destruction  of  Floren- 
tine liberty  and  the  Sicilian  Vespers,  are  more  compliant 
w^ith  ordinary  dramatic  rules;    but  the  most  celebrated 
and  successful  on  the  stage  is  Antonio  Foscarini,  founded 
on  the  same  incident  in  Venetian  history  that  had  afforded 
tlie  subject  of  Pindemonte's  poem.     Before  he  became 
imbued  with  the  spirit  of  the  romantic  school,  Niccolini 
had  acquired  great  distinction   as  a   classical   dramatist, 
especially  by  his  Polissena  and  his  Medea,     His  first  per- 
formance, Nabucco  (1816),  idealised  the  fall  of  Napoleon 
in  a  Babylonian  tragedy.     Among  his  plays  is  a  free 
translation  of  Shelley's  Cenciy  in  general  excellent,  but 
remarkable  for  the  entire  disfigurement  of  the  opening 
speech,  no  doubt  for  prudential  reasons.     At  first  poor, 


SILVIO   PELLICO 


351 


i 


afterwards  in  easy  circumstances,  Niccolini  spent  an 
uneventful  life  in  the  service  of  the  Academy  of  Florence  ; 
his  mode  of  living  was  sequestered,  and  his  character 
stainless. 

With  all  his  good-will,  Niccolini  could  deal  no  such 
''  lows  at  foreign  or  domestic  oppressors  as  that  which  a 
brother  dramatist  of  greatly  inferior  power  delivered  by 
the  mere  record  of  his  sufferings.  Le  Mie  Prigioni 
made  Silvio  Pellico  (1789-1854)  as  typical  a  figure  as 
the  Iron  Mask  or  the  Prisoner  of  Chillon,  and  won  Italy 
a  moral  victory  in  her  darkest  day  (1832).  It  is  needless 
to  give  any  particular  account  of  so  famous  a  book. 
The  candid  and  innocent  author  was  born  to  move  man- 
kind by  a  single  story,  and  to  relapse  into  obscurity  after 
delivering  his  message.  His  dramas  and  lyrics  do  not 
exceed  mediocrity,  with  the  exception  of  Fraiicesca  da 
Rimini  (1818),  a  tragedy  full  of  tender  feeling,  ad- 
mired by  Byron,  to  whom  the  version  of  some  scenes  in 
the  Quarterly  Review  has  been  attributed.  They  were, 
however,  in  fact  rendered  by  Milman. 


'■itiiiianiffliiiir-*"-''"'''**"-^"^*^'^"-'^^''""*''^ 


aawiiiififfniiiit  litiMiiaihiiiiiii'iaaMMMBiMihjaaai 


CHAPTER   XXIV 

THE    REGENERATION 

That  only  one  of  the  distinguished  writers  reviewed  in 
the  last  chapter  should  have  given  free  expression  to 
the  Italian  craving  for  liberty  and  national  unity,  may  be 
accounted  for  in  the  simplest  possible  manner.  Foscolo 
was  the  only  one  in  exile  ;  the  unexpatriated,  writing 
under  a  censorship,  said  not  what  they  would,  but  w^iat 
they  could.  Apart,  nevertheless,  from  this  consideration, 
it  is  true  that  tlie  national  movement  was  slow  in  acquir- 
ing energy  and  consistency,  inasmuch  as  it  was  not  in 
the  first  instance  an  indigenous  growth.  The  conception 
of  an  Italian  «ation  under  a  single  political  head  had  not 
been  too  clearly  formulated,  even  by  Petrarch  and  Machia- 
velli,  and  since  the  hitter's  time  had  been  in  great  mea- 
sure the  exclusive  possession  of  the  finest  minds.  As  an 
upbursting  bubble  may  hint  at  what  is  passing  in  the 
depths  of  the  sea,  so  Gernando's  scofif  in  the  Gcrusalcmmc 
Liherata  :it  Riniildo  as  a  native  of  la  senni  Italia  reveals 
the  hidden  workings  of  Tasso's  spirit,  and  vindicates  him 
from  the  charge  of  ludicrously  servile  adulation.  Notliing 
more  ridiculous  can  be  conceived  than  the  poet's  notion 
that  his  patron  x\lphonso  might  well  lead  either  the  armies 
or  the  fleets  of  Europe  in  a  new  crusade  if  he  was  to  be 
no  more  than  a  Duke  of  Ferrara ;  not  so  if  the  headship 

of  a  united  and  regenerated  Italy  was  to  fall  to  him. 

332 


^) 


NAPOLEON  AND  ITALY 


353 


The  next  generation  reposed  hopes  premature,  indeed — 
vet,  as  the  far-off  event  was  to  show,  not  irrational — in  the 
house  of  Savoy  ;  but  as  time  wore  on  and  material  cir- 
cumstances improved,  these  patriotic  aspirations  waned, 
and  the  call  for  liberty  which  came  from  France  in  the 
revolutionary  era  had  to  create  the  sentiment  to  which 
it  appealed.  Any  prospect  of  such  a  response  seemed 
destroyed  by  the  behaviour  of  the  French  propaganda 
itself — its  infamous  betrayal  of  the  Venetian  Republic, 
its  exactions  from  private  fortunes,  pillages  from  public 
treasuries,  and  wholesale  robbery  of  Italian  works  of  art. 
Yet  by  an  extraordinary  turn  of  events  the  chief  perpe- 
trator of  these  iniquities,  himself  an  Italian,  became  most 
undesignedly  on  his  own  part  the  father  of  Italian  unity 
and  freedom.  By  crowning  himself  King  of  Italy, 
Napoleon  Bonaparte  gave  her  a  national  existence. 
After  a  few  years  of  his  rule  the  inhabitants  of  the 
peninsula  could  not  but  perceive  that  the  visions  of 
their  seers  and  the  aspirations  of  their  statesmen  had 
in  great  measure  come  to  pass. 

Notwithstanding  the  existence  of  some  nominally  inde- 
pendent principalities,  for  the  first  time  since  Theodoric 
the  Italians  of  the  North  at  all  events  actually  were 
Italians — not  Lombards,  or  Tuscans,  or  Piedmontese. 
They  w^ere  indeed  ruled  by  a  despot ;  but  to  this,  with 
the  practical  instinct  of  their  race,  the  Italians  submitted 
in  the  prevision  that  Napoleon's  empire  must  be  dissolved 
by  his  death,  and  the  hope  that  the  national  unity  would 
survive  it  and  him.  Such  might  well  have  been  the  case 
had  his  authority  been  peacefully  transmitted  to  a  suc- 
cessor ;  but  the  circumstances  of  his  downfall  inevitably 
brought  back  the  Austrians  and  the  exiled  princes,  to 
reign  no  longer  over  a  contented  or  an  indifferent  people, 


354 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE 


but  over  one  which  had  taken  the  idea  of  national  unity 
to  its  heart.  The  effect  on  Hterature  is  iUustrated  by  a 
passa.ue  in  one  of  Byron's  letters  from  Italy  :  *'They  talk 
Dante,  write  Dante,  and  think  and  dream  Dante  to  an 
extent  that  would  be  ridiculous  but  that  he  deserves  it." 
It  was  not  so  nuich  the  recot^nition  of  Dante's  literary 
desert  which  occasioned  this  reaction  from  ei^^hteenth- 
century  nci^lect,  as  the  mcarnation  of  the  sufferings  and 
the  genius  of  his  country  in  liis  person. 

A  generation  thus  nurtured  on  Dante,  and  on  Dante 
Studied  from  such  a  point  of  view^,  could  not  but  grow  up 
serious  and  patriotic.  Nor  were  other  literary  influences 
wanting.  The  fourth  canto  of  Childc  Harold,  and  even 
more  Madame  de  Stael's  Corinne,  contrasted  in  the  most 
forcible  manner  the  past  artistic  and  intellectual  glories 
with  the  actual  political  degradation,  and  showed  Italy 
how  far  she  had  fallen,  but  also  how  high  she  might 
hope  to  reascend.  Such  influences  imbued  the  youthful 
generation  with  a  more  impassioned  and  enthusiastic  char- 
acter than  its  fathers.  The  new  aspirations  embodied 
themselves  most  distinctly  in  three  men— Mazzini,  type 
of  physical  resi^ance  to  oppression;  Giusti,  of  relentless 
opposition  in  the  intellectual  sphere ;  Leopardi,  of  the 
passive  protest  of  martyrdom.  In  him,  as  by  an  emblem, 
the  beauty  and  the  anguish  of  the  suffering  country  are 
shown  forth,  and  on  this  account  no  less  than  from  the 
superiority  of  his  literary  genius,  though  no  active  insur- 
gent against  the  established  order  of  things,  he  claims 
the  first  place  in  his  hapless  but  glorious  generation. 

The  tractical  yet  uneventful  life  of  GlACOMO  Leo- 
PAKDI  was  little  else  than  ardent  cultivation  of  the  spirit 
and  constant  struggle  with  the  infirmities  of  the  body. 
Born  in  1798  at  Recanati,  a  small  dull  town  near  Rimini, 


LEOPARDI 


355 


the  son  of  a  learned  and  high-minded,  but  unfortunately 
bigoted  and  retrograde  Italian  nobleman,  of  anti-national 
politics  and  antiquarian  tastes,  whose  embarrassed  cir- 
cumstances and  incapacity  for  business  had  induced  him 
to  assign  his  property  to  a  practical  but  parsimonious 
wife,  Leopardi  solaced  the  forlornness  of  existence  in  a 
spiritual  desert  by  intense  study,  favoured  by  his  father's 
extensive  library,  in  which  he  immured  himself  to  a  de- 
gree propitious  to  neither  bodily  nor  mental  health.  So 
extraordinary  were  his  powers  that  at  nineteen,  besides 
many  excellent  bo7id  fide  translations,  he  produced  ima- 
ginary versions  of  lost  Greek  authors  which  deceived 
accomplished  classical  scholars.  But  the  maladies  from 
which  he  was  to  suffer  all  his  life  had  already  made 
progress ;  he  could  follow  no  profession,  and  was  en- 
tirely dependent  upon  wxll-intentioned  but  uncongenial 
parents,  whose  dread  of  the  liberal  and  free-thinking 
opinions  he  had  imbibed,  chiefly  from  correspondence 
with  Pietro  Giordan i,  induced  them  to  imprison  him  at 
home. 

Though  solaced  by  the  affection  of  his  brother  Carlo 
and  his  sister  Paolina,  Leopardi's  position  was  most  un- 
comfortable, and  the  chief  external  events  of  his  history 
for  many  years  are  his  temporary  escapes  and  his  en- 
forced returns.  He  sought  refuge  successively  at  Rome, 
Bologna,  and  Florence,  meeting  with  friends  everywhere, 
especially  at  Rome,  where  he  won  the  esteem  and  excited 
the  wonder  of  Niebuhr  and  Bunsen.  His  craving  for 
deeper  sympathy  twice  involved  him  in  love  affairs,  both 
fruitful  in  humiliation  and  disappointment.  Nothing 
else,  indeed,  could  be  expected  for  the  suit  of  the  pallid, 
deformed  youth,  whose  blood  barely  circulated,  whose 
indigestion  almost  deprived  him  of  nourishment,  whose 


35<5 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE 


feeble  limbs  bent  beneath  the  weight  of  a  body  even 
so  attenuated,  and  whose  heart  and  lungs  scarcely 
discharged  their  office.  All  active  life  seemed  concen- 
trated in  his  brain,  which  throve  and  energised  at  the 
cxpensL,'  of  cvcrv  other  origan.  He  executed  some  work 
for  the  booksellers,  especially  his  condensed  but  invalu- 
able comment  on  I^etrarch,  and  from  time  to  time  gave 
expression  to  some  slowly-maturing  thought,  in  literary 
form  meet  for  immortality,  but  unvalued  and  unrecom- 
pensed  by  his  contemporaries. 

Neither  Leopardi's  patriotic  sentiments  nor  his  specu- 
lative opinions  could  be  disclosed  under  the  pressure  of 
Austrian  and  Bourbon  despotism  ;  the  King  of  Sardinia 
had  not  vet  declared  himself  on  the  side  of  liberty,  and 
there  was  literally  no  spot  in  Italy  where  an  Italian  could 
write  what  he  thought.  Emigration  to  France  or  England 
would  have  been  forbidden  by  his  parents,  upon  whom 
he  was  entirely  dependent.  At  length,  in  September  1833, 
he  was  able  to  establish  himself  at  Naples,  where  for  a 
time  his  health  and  spirits  seemed  marvellously  improved; 
but  from  the  summer  of  1836  these  retrograded,  and  he 
succumbed  to  a  sudden  aggravation  of  the  dropsy  which 
had  long  threatened  him,  on  June  14,  1837.  His  unpub- 
lished philological  writings  were  bequeathed  to  a  Swiss 
friend.  Professor  de  Sinner,  who  neglected  his  trust. 
Tlie  MSS.,  however,  were  bought  from  his  heirs  by  the 
Italian  Government,  and  have  been  partially  published. 
Leopardi's  other  works  were  faithfully  edited  by  Antonio 
Ranieri,  a  friend  whose  devoted  kindness  to  him  during 
his  life  renders  it  utterly  incomprehensible  how  he  should 
have  sought  to  blacken  his  memory  after  his  death  by 
the  publication  of  a  number  of  painful  and  humiliating 
circumstances,  which,  if  they  had  been  facts,  should  have 


LEOPARDI  AS  PHILOSOPHER 


357 


been  consigned  to  oblivion,  but  which  Dr.  Franco  Ridella 
has  shown  to  be  mere  invention. 

While  he  still  posed  as  Leopardi's  Pythias,  Ranieri 
summed  up  his  friend's  titles  to  renown  as,  'Mirst  a  great 
philologer,  next  a  great  poet,  at  the  last  a  great  philo- 
sopher."   Great  poet  he  unquestionably  was ;  his  refined 
classical   scholarship    might   have    earned   him  the  dis- 
tinction of  a  great  philologer  in  a  sense  disused  since 
comparative  philology  has  taken  rank  among  the  exact 
sciences  ;  if  he  was  a  great  philosopher,  so  Voltaire  and 
Lucian  must  be  esteemed.     The  keen  sensibility  to  pain 
which  dominated  his  mental   constitution  was  as  little 
associated  with  any  constructive  faculty  or  capacity  for 
systematic  thought  as  was  their  hatred  of  pretence  and 
perception    of   the    ludicrous  ;    but  while   their  endow- 
ments were  brilliantly  serviceable  to  mankind,  Leopardi's 
moral   pathology,  if  it   had   any   potency  at  all,   could 
operate  only  for  ill,     Mischievous  attempts  have  indeed 
been  made  to  accredit  the  pessimism  pf  our  times  by 
exalting  the  cries  wrung  by  anguish   from  a  wretched 
invalid  into  the  last  and  ripest  fruit  of  the  tree  of  know- 
ledge.    Whatever  may  be  the  case  in  Oriental  countries, 
there  has  seldom  been  a  pessimist  in  the  West  without 
some  moral  or   physical  malady  which  ought  to  have 
withheld  him  from  assuming  the  part  of  ^n  instructor  of 
mankind  ;  but  Leopardi's  pessimism  is  not  only  morbid, 
but  unmanly.     The  stress  which  he  lays  upon   merely 
physical  evils,  such  as  heat  and  cold,  hunger  and  thirst, 
would  have  moved  the  contempt  of  an  angient  sage  of 
any  sect  ;   and  the  contemporary  of  so  many  martyrs 
for  their  country  admits  no  spring  of  human  action  but 
naked  egotism.     The  grandeur  and  beauty  of  material 

nature,  the  sublime  creations  of  man's  spirit,  the  teeming 
24 


afciialhJiiiilnfhn  'nii MfcjBaiifliaari'iaflbfcji^BiUBfa*w^*.iigi>..Bkk ' a  •^Aa/tf,  ^  AA.i^Jk,. vi.ai.—  ■M.ab  JMn^jg  JWfcW  ^j^-i^StA  Ju.-tairw.Mfc  J 


358 


ITALIAN   LITERATURE 


harvest  of  human  virtues  and  affections,  the  tranquilHsing 
recognition  of  eternal  order  and  controlling  law,  the  mar- 
vellous course  of  the  world's  history,  when  not  ignored, 
are  treated  as  the  mere  mockery  and  aggravation  of  the 
entirely  imaginary  background  of  blackness— a  shining 
leprosy  upon  a  hideous  countenance.  And  yet  the  real 
nature  of  the  man  was  quite  different ;  his  pessimism 
and  egotism  are  simply  the  product  of  bodily  suffering, 
of  the  wounded  self-esteem  and  disappointed  affections 
which  followed  in  its  train,  and  of  the  absence  of  any 
outlet  tor  his  surpassing  intellectual  powers. 

It  was  a  cruel  injury  to  Italy  that  her  greatest  modern 
genius  should  have  done  so  little  for  her  regeneration, 
and  that  his  writings,  instead  of  inspiring  a  healthy  public 
spirit,  should  rather  tend  to  foster  the  selfish  indifference 
and  the  despair  of  good  which  continue  to  be  her  prin- 
cipal bane.  In  two  points  of  view,  nevertheless,  Leopardi 
rendered  his  country  essential  service.  His  sufferings, 
and  the  moral  infirmities  which  they  entailed,  enabled 
him  to  represent  in  his  own  person,  as  no  soundly- 
constituted  man  could  have  done,  the  unhappy  Italy 
of  his  day.  He  seemed  the  living  symbol  of  a  country 
naturally  favoured  beyond  all  others,  but  racked  and  dis- 
membered by  foreign  and  domestic  tyrants,  the  counter- 
parts in  the  body  politic  of  the  maladies  which  crippled 
Leopardi's  energies,  and  distorted  his  views  of  man  and 
nature.  At  the  same  time  the  transcendent  excellence 
of  his  scanty  literary  performances  raised  Italian  litera- 
ture to  a  height  which,  Alfieri  and  Monti  notwith- 
standing, it  had  not  attained  since  Tasso,  and  in  the 
midst  of  an  epoch  of  servitude  and  subjugation  gave 
Italians  at  least  one  thing  of  which  they  might  justly  be 
proud. 


LEOPARDI  AS   POET 


359 


The  bulk  of  Leopardi's  writings,  indeed,  is  diminutive, 
and  the  range  of  his  ideas  narrow  ;  but  within  these  limits 
he  has  approached  absolute  perfection  more  closely,  not 
only  than  any  other  Italian,  but  than  any  modern  writer. 
He  is  one  of  that  small  and  remarkable  class  of  men  who 
have  arisen  here  and  there  in  recent  Europe  to  repro- 
duce each   some  peculiar  aspect  of   the  ancient  Greek 
genius.     As  Shelley  is  a  Greek  by  his  pantheism,  Keats  by 
his  feeling  for  nature,  Platen  by  the  architectonic  of  his 
verse,  so  is  Leopardi  by  his  impeccability.     All  the  best 
Greek  productions,  w^hether  of  poetic  or  of  plastic  art, 
have  this  character  of  inevitableness  :   they  can  neither 
be  better  nor  other  than  they  are.     It  is  not  the  same  in 
romantic  poetry.     Shakespeare  no  doubt  always  chose 
the  best   path,   but  he   always   seems   to  have   had  the 
choice   among   a   thousand.      In    almost   everything   of 
Leopardi's,  whether  verse  or  prose,  form  and  thought 
appear    indissolubly    interfused   without    the    possibility 
of   disjunction.      This    is   eminently   the   case   with   his 
poems,    perfect   examples   of   lofty   and    sustained    elo- 
quence entirely  uncontaminated  by  rhetoric.     There  are 
few  thoughts  which  strike  by  their  novelty,  few  elabo- 
rated similes,  few  phrases  which  stand  forth  in  isolation 
from  the  environing  text.     All  seems  of  a  piece  ;  but  the 
words  chosen  are  invariably  the  most  apt  to  express  the 
idea  sought  to  be  conveyed,  and  the  stream  of  sentiment 
is  as  pellucid  as  it  is  impetuous.    The  same  mastery  is 
evinced  in  the  descriptive  passages,  which  never  appear 
to  exist  for  their  own  sakes,  but  as  depicting  the  inner 
feeling  of  the  poem  by  a  visible  symbol.     Be  the  subject 
small  or  great,  from  the  disappearance  of  a  vast  land- 
scape at  the  setting  of  the  moon,  or  the  terrified  peasant 
listening  sleeplessly  to  the  roar  of  Vesuvius,  down  to  the 


36o 


ITALIAN   LITERATURE 


rain  patterin.i^  at  the  poofs  window,  or  the  rattle  of  the 
carriage    resuminj;,    its   journey    after    the    storm,    these 
descriptions  impress  bv  their  perfect  adequacy  and  their 
complete  fusu>n  of  speech  and  thought,  and  it  can  only 
be  objected  to  them  that  they  are  iiner  than  tlie  mora- 
lities  they  usher    in.      So    wrote    the    Greeks,    and    the 
recovery  of  an  apparently  lost  type  makes  amends  for 
the  monotony  of  Leopardi's  dism;d  message  to  mankind 
and  the  extreme  limitation  of  his  range  of  thought.     In 
his  later  days  his  horizon  seemed  to  expand  ;  his  serio- 
comic Paralipomeni,  already  noticed  with  other  examples 
of   its  class,  displays  an  unexpected  versatility,  and  his 
last  ode,  La  Ginesira,  inspired  by  the  hardy  and  humble 
broom-plant  flourishing  on  the  brink  of  the  lava-fields  of 
Vesuvius,  is  more  original  in  conception  and  ampler  m 
sweep   than   anv   of    its   predecessors.     It   somewhat  re- 
sembles Shelley's  Mont  Blanc  ;    as  Shelley's    Tnum/>/i  of 
Life,  with  equal  unconsciousncb^  on   the   author's  part, 
approximates    to   Leopardi's    first    important    poem,  the 
Appressamento  alia  Mortc,     They  had  here  a  common 
model  in   l^etrarch. 

Leopardi's  poems,  though  the   majority  are  in  blank 
verse,  may  generally  be  detined  as  canzoni,  either  odes 
in  the  strict  sense  of  the  term,  addresses  to  friends,  im- 
passioned outpourings  of  lonely  thought  akin  to  Words- 
worth's ''  Tintern  Abbey,"  or  apostrophes  to  inanimate 
objects,   such   as   the   moon,  the   natural  friend   of   the 
melancholy  poet,  or  the  Vesuvian  broom-plant,  already 
mentioned.     A  few  pieces,  such  as  //  Prirno  Amove,  II 
Risorgimento,  are   autobiographical  ;    in   these   Leopardi 
usually  adopts  terza  rima  or  the  ordinary  rhymed  metres. 
Personal   as  these   pieces  are   in  subject,   they   are   not 
really  more  subjective  than  the  rest.    Leopardi  is  entirely 


LEOPARDI'S  ODES 


361 


devoid  of  inventive  power  :  the  w^andering  shepherd  of 
Asia,  mouthpiece  for  one  of  his  finest  poems,  is  the 
author  in  everything  but  costume.  Three  of  the  most 
celebrated  odes.  To  Italy,  On  the  Florentme  Monuuicjit  to 
Dante,  and  To  Angelo  Mai  on  the  Recovery  of  Cicero  De 
Republica,  may  be  styled  patriotic  ;  but  although  the  love 
of  Italy  is  clearly  and  eloquently  expressed,  the  scorn  of 
her  actual  condition,  the  fault  of  no  one  then  breathing, 
is  so  bitter  and  contumelious  that  the  effect  is  anything 
but  Tyrtaean.  These  are  nevertheless  masterpieces  of 
noble  diction,  and  little  short  of  miraculous  for  the  age 
of  twenty,  at  which  they  were  produced.  It  is  perhaps  a 
defect  that  lines  are  frequently  left  unrhymed,  and  that 
the  ear  is  thus  defrauded  of  an  anticipated  satisfaction. 

Leopardi's  blank  verse  is  the  finest  in  Italian  literature. 
If  it  has  neither  the  "wood-note  wild"  of  Shakespeare's 
sweetest  passages,  nor  the  voluminous  harmony  of 
Milton's  organ-music,  nor  the  dainty  artifice  of  Tennyson, 
it  is  fully  on  a  par  with  the  finest  metrical  performances 
of  Shelley  and  Coleridge  ;  and  perhaps  the  English 
reader  could  hardly  obtain  a  better  idea  of  it  than  by 
imagining  a  blending  of  the  manner  of  Coleridge's  idylls 
with  that  of  Shelley's  Alastor,  It  admits  of  translation 
into  English  ;  while  an  adequate  rendering  of  the  strictly 
lyrical  poems,  so  smooth  and  yet  so  muscular,  like  the 
marble  statue  of  an  athlete,  would  be  an  achievement  of 
very  great  difficulty.  Perhaps  the  following  little  piece 
may  convey  some  idea  of  Leopardi's  manner  in  blank 
verse.  Few  are  the  poems  in  which  a  mere  triviality  has 
been  made  the  occasion  of  a  meditation  so  sublime  : 


(( 


Dear  to  me  ever  was  this  lonely  hill, 
.Ind  this  low  hedge,  whose  potent  littleness 
Forbids  the  vast  horizon  to  the  eve. 


362  ITALIAN   LITERATURE 

For,  as  I  sit  and  muse,  my  fancy  frames 

Interminable  space  beyond  its  bound. 

And  silence  more  than  human,  and  secure 

Unutterable  and  unendinj^  rest, 

Where  eiun  the  heart  hath  peace.     And  as  I  hear 

The  faint  luinds  breath  among-  the  trees,  my  mind 

Compares  these  lispings  with  the  infinite  hush 

Of  that  invisible  distance,  and  the  dead 

And  unborn  hours  of  dim  eternity 

I  nth  this  hour  and  its  voices.     Thus  my  thought 

Gulfing  infinity  doth  sivallow  up; 

And  sweet  to  me  is  shipwreck  in  this  sea." 

Leopardi's  prose  works,  his  correspondence  and  philo- 
logical essays  excepted,  are,  like  his  poetry,  limited  in 
extent  and  in  range  of  subject,  but  incomparable  for 
retinement  and  beauty  of  form.  He  deemed  a  perfect 
prose  more  beautiful  and  more  difficult  of  achievement 
than  poetry  of  like  rank,  and  related  to  it  as  the  undraped 
fiiiure  to  the  ii^ure  clothed.  The  most  remarkable  of  his 
prose  writings  are  the  Dialogues,  which  almost  all  turn 
upon  the  everlasting  theme  of  the  misery  of  mankind, 
varied  in  the  exposition  with  a  grace  and  fanciful 
ingenuity  recalling  the  little  apologues  in  Turgenev's 
Scniiia.  In  one,  Mercury  and  Atlas  play  at  ball  with  the 
earth,  become  light  as  tinder  by  internal  decay  and  the 
extinction  of  life  ;  in  another,  the  earth  and  the  moon 
compare  notes  on  the  infelicity  of  their  respective  in-, 
habitants;  in  anotlier,  Momus  and  Prometheus  descend 
to  earth  to  investigate  the  success  of  the  latter's  philan- 
thropic inventions,  which  have  answered  Momus's  ex- 
pectations better  than  his  ;  in  another,  Tasso's  familiar 
genius  pronnses  to  make  him  liappy  in  the  only  possible 
manner,  by  a  pleasing  dream.  Comparison  is  continually 
suimested  with  two  ^rt  it  writers,  Lucian  and  Pascal,  and 


LEOPARDI  AS  MORALIST 


363 


Leopardi  sustains  it  worthily.  Inferior  to  Lucian  in 
racy  humour,  to  Pascal  in  keenness  of  sarcasm,  he  sur- 
passes both  in  virtue  of  the  poetical  endowment  which 
nature  had  utterly  denied  to  them.  In  form  he  comes 
nearest  to  Lucian,  in  spirit  to  Pascal.  Lucian,  a  healthy 
four-square  man,  robust  in  common-sense,  little  given  to 
introspection  and  untroubled  by  sensitiveness,  is  consti- 
tutionally very  unlike  Leopardi ;  but  it  might  be  difBcult 
to  establish  a  closer  parallel  than  between  the  Italian  and 
the  French  recluse  ;  both  very  sparing  but  very  choice 
WTiters  ;  exquisite  scholars  in  classics  and  mathematics 
respectively  ;  both  hopeless  pessimists  because  hopeless 
invalids  ;  the  keenest  and  most  polished  intellects  of  their 
time,  and  yet  further  astray  on  the  most  momentous 
subjects  than  many  a  man  "whose  talk  is  of  bullocks." 
Leopardi  has  the  advantage  in  so  far  that  his  scorn  of  man 
never  degenerates  into  misanthropy,  and  his  negation  is 
better  than  Pascal's  superstition. 

Leopardi's  strictly  ethical  writings  {Storia  del  Genere 
Uviano;  Parini,  or  On  Glory;  Bruto  Minorc ;  Filippo  Otto- 
nieri)  are  necessarily  devoid  of  imaginative  form,  and 
hence  want  the  peculiar,  charm  of  his  Dialogues,  but  are 
not  inferior  in  classical  finish.  They  bring  out  a  more 
serious  defect  of  his  thought  than  even  his  pessimism— his 
ultra-hedonism  in  definition  of  happiness  as  a  succession 
of  momentary  pleasurable  emotions,  each  to  be  enjoyed 
as  something  complete  in  itself  without  reference  to  ante- 
cedents or  consequences.  This  theory,  said  to  have 
originated  with  Aristippus  of  Cyrene,  is  precisely  that 
put  forth  by  Walter  Pater  at  the  beginning  of  his  career, 
but  afterwards  virtually  retracted.  There  is  one  human 
condition,  and  but  one,  which  it  actually  does  suit,  and 
that    is   Leopardi's   own— the   condition   of  the  chronic 


3^4 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE 


invalid.  To  the  sufferer  whose  life  is  a  continual  physi- 
cal agony,  the  brief  intervals  of  ease  actually  are  the 
utmost  bliss  he  is  capable  of  conceiving,  and  he  may 
well  be  forgiven  if  he  makes  a  succession  of  such  thrills 
of  pleasure  the  ideal  of  life.  From  any  other  point  of 
view  this  hedonism  is  the  doctrine  of  a  voluptuary, 
which  Leopardi  assuredly  was  not.  His  mode  of 
thought,  nevertheless,  increased  his  infelicity  by  depriv- 
ing him  of  solace  from  the  anticipation  of  posthumous 
fame,  for  which,  as  no  ingenuity  could  prove  it  a 
pleasurable  sensation,  his  hedonistic  materialism  left  no 
place.  With  his  low  estimate  of  men,  he  could  repose 
little  hope  in  their  justice  ;  nor,  though  perfectly  aware 
of  the  supreme  literary  excellence  of  his  ow^n  writings, 
could  he  feel  the  assurance  of  their  immortality  which 
is  only  possible  to  him  who  regards  the  universe  as 
incarnate  Reason.  His  verdict  upon  himself  and  them, 
widely  at  variance  with  the  truth,  but  logical  from  his 
own  point  of  view%  is  pathetically  summed  up  in  his 
epitaph  on  the  imaginary  Filippo  Ottonieri,  his  own 
ideal  portrait  :  '*  Here  lies  Filippo  Ottonieri,  born  for 
renoiK.ni  and  virtuous  deeds;  zvho  lived  without  profit  and 
died  without  fame ;  ignorant  neither  of  his  nature  nor  of 
his  fortune." 

Many  of  Leopardi's  detached  meditations  and  apho- 
risms evince  great  subtlety  and  accuracy  of  observation, 
distorted  by  his  persistent  determination  to  think  ill 
of  the  human  race  as  a  whole,  while  amicably  and 
often  affectioiuitely  disposed  towards  its  individual 
members.  His  philological  writings  are  those  of  an 
accomplished  scholar,  but  their  themes  are  generally  of 
minor  importance.  His  letters  are  frequently  most 
pathetic    in    their   references  to  his  wretched   situation, 


GIUSTI 


36s 


which  alone  can  excuse  the  frequent  insincerity  of  those 
addressed  to  his  father.  On  the  whole,  his  faults  and  his 
virtues  are  such  as  to  render  him  the  most  lively  repre- 
sentation of  the  Italy  of  his  day,  superior  to  the  Italy  of 
a  past  age  in  so  far  as  awakened  to  a  consciousness 
of  her  abject  condition,  but  not  yet  nerved  to  struggle 
for  her  redemption. 

While  Leopardi,  although  at  heart  a  patriot,  w^as  vir- 
tually proclaiming  patriotism  a  phantom,  a  poet  of  a 
very  different  cast  was  assailing  abuses  and  preparing  a 
better  day  by  dint  of  humorous  indignation  and  sturdy 
hopefulness.  The  Italy  of  the  time  stands  between 
Leopardi  and  Giuseppe  Giusti  (1809-50)  like  Garrick 
between  tragedy  and  comedy.  Giusti's  gifts  were  less 
sublime  than  Leopardi's,  but  not  less  original.  What 
Leopardi  was  to  the- Italian  language  in  its  most  classical 
form,  Giusti  was  to  the  peculiar  niceties  of  the  most  idio- 
matic Tuscan.  What  Leopardi  was  to  the  most  elevated 
description  of  poetry,  Giusti  was  to  political  satire.  Indeed 
he  was  more,  for  Leopardi  merely  carried  recognised 
form  to  more  consummate  perfection,  while  Giusti's 
style  was  actually  created  by  him.  Rich  as  Italy  had 
been  in  most  kinds  of  humorous  and  burlesque  poetry, 
she  had  achieved  little  in  political  satire  for  very  evident 
reasons.  Campanella  and  Alfieri  had  verged  upon  it ; 
and  Casti's  Ajti?nali Parlanti  ^nd  \^^o^-diXdi\%  Paralipomeni 
may,  from  one  point  of  view,  be  regarded  as  political 
satires,  though  rather  belonging  to  the  mock-heroic  epic. 
But  no  political  satirist  had  yet  reached  the  heart  of 
the  people,  partly  because  few  had  the  courage  to  make 
the  attempt,  partly  because  metrical  satire  was  as  yet 
restricted  to  refined  and  artificial  forms.  The  gallantry 
with  which  Giusti,  living  under  the  absolute  government 


366 


ITALIAN   LITERATURE 


of  Tuscany,  itself  wholly  subservient  to  Austria,  launched 
shaft  after  shaft  again^t  the  oppressors  of  his  country, 
is  paralleled  by  the  boldness  of  the  literary  innovation 
he  made  in  discardini^  the  time-honoured  forms  of  blank 
verse  and  terza  rima,  and  conveying  satire  in  easy  and 

familiar  lyric. 

Giusti  has  been  compared  to  Beranger,  but  certainly 
falls  short  of  the  Frenchman  as  a  master  of  song,  while 
he  has  more  of  the  sacred  fire  of  poetical  indignation. 
The  Anacreontic  side  of  Beranger's  genius  has  no  counter- 
part in  him.  As  a  master  of  idiomatic  Tuscan  he  stands 
alone  ;  but  his  poems  require  a  glossary,  and  what  helps 
his  fame  witli  his  countrymen  hinders  it  with  foreigners. 
Hi>  satires  are  sometimes  called  forth  by  the  occurrences 
of  the  day,  but  are  more  frequently  directed  at  some  per- 
sistent evil  or  misfortune  of  the  country  ;  and  although 
the  expulsion  of  the  foreigner  and  his  vassals  is  the 
idea  most  commonly  in  the  background,  not  a  few  of  the 
best  pieces  treat  of  the  defects  of  the  Italian  people  itself, 
the  frivolity  of  some  classes  of  society,  the  ignorance 
and  superstition  of  others,  and  not  least  the  pretentious 
emptiness  of  much  modern  liberalism.  The  general 
tone  of  Giusti's  compositions  is  easy  and  humorous  ;  but 
under  the  impulse  of  emotion  he  is  capable  of  rising  into 
high  poetry,  as  in  the  description  of  the  corruption  of 
Florentine  society  in  his  Gingillino,  or  in  the  palinode  to 
the  Grand  Duke  of  Tuscany,  when  (October  1847)  ^^^^ 
poet  for  a  moment  believed  that  Leopold  was  about  to 
pursue  a  liberal  course. 

Giusti  would  have  f( )und  it  difficult  to  reconcile  this 
attitude  with  the  aspirations  for  the  unity  of  Italy  which 
he  had  expressed  in  liis  Stivale  in  1836,  but  it  soon 
appeared  that  Leopold's  constitutionalism  was  of  a  piece 


GIUSTI 


1^7 


with  the  monastic  inclinations  attributed  to  invalid 
devils,  and  Giusti  went  back  into  opposition,  more 
annoyed  and  dispirited  by  the  follies  and  vagaries  of 
liis  own  party  than  by  the  iniquities  of  the  enemy. 
The  French  Revolution  of  February  1848  gave  the 
upper  hand  to  the  Tuscan  liberals,  who  had  super- 
abundantly manifested  their  incapacity  ere,  in  March 
1849,  the  fate  of  Tuscany  was  decided  on  the  battle- 
field of  Novara.  The  heart-broken  poet,  already  suffer- 
ing from  grievous  illness,  could  not  survive  until  the 
better  day,  dying  on  31st  March  1850.  Chi  dura  vince. 
His  profession  had  been  that  of  an  advocate,  and, 
until  his  last  days,  his  life  was  uneventful  except  for 
an  unfortunate  attachment.  It  certainly  speaks  for  the 
lenity  of  the  Tuscan  Government  that  he  should  not 
have  spent  much  of  it  in  prison,  for  his  satires  from 
1833  to  1847  circulated  widely  in  manuscript,  and  some 
were  printed  in  Switzerland  in  his  lifetime.  They  must 
suffer  with  posterity  for  their  general  relation  to  tem- 
porary circumstances  ;  but  Giusti  will  ever  retain  the 
honour  of  having  been  the  tirst  to  apply  ordinary  Italian 
speech  to  the  poetical  expression  of  new  ideas  and  new 
needs,  thus  enlarging  the  domain  both  of  language  and 
of  literature. 

The  best  English  translations  from  Giusti  are  the 
brilliant  renderings  by  Mr.  W.  D.  Howells,  especially 
that  of  the  striking  poem  of  St.  Ambrose,  where  an 
Italian  is  represented  as  moved  to  sympathy  with  the 
Austrian  soldiers  by  the  beauty  of 

"./  ucrman  anthem  that  to  heaven  went 
On  unseen  ^uini^s,  up  from  the  hot y  fane; 
It  was  a  prayer^  and  seemed  like  a  lament^ 

Of  such  a  pensive,  oraie,  pathetic  strain. 


"^■^--"-'^lifriWlBiiMfttritnin  lilftanm 


!-,.j>.-.^w.i^-i....<.— jw.^..  »A...  ...^i.B>.^..^jJMB.ag....uta.Ki.<MMai»iaa| 


368 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE 

That  in  m  v  soul  it  never  shall  be  spent ; 

Ami  hinc  sueh  heavenly  harmony  in  the  brain 
Of  those  thiek-skulled  barbarians  should  dwell, 
J  must  confess  it  passes  me  to  tell. 

In  that  sad  hvmn  1  felt  the  bitter  sweet 

Of  the  son<:s  heard  in  childhood,  which  the  soul 

Learns  from  beloved  7'e>iees.  to  repeat 
To  its  oien  ant^uish  in  the  days  of  dole: 

A  thoui^ht  of  the  dear  mother,  a  regret, 
A  lon^^in'^for  repose  and  love— the  whole 

Anguish  of  distant  exile  seemed  to  run 

Over  my  heart  and  leave  it  all  undone. 

When  the  strain  ceased,  it  left  me  pondering 

Tenderer  thoughts,  and  stronger  and  more  clear; 

These  men,  I  mused,  the  selfsame  despot  king 
Who  rules  on  Sla7>ic  and  Italian  fear. 

Tears  from  their  homes  and  arms  that  round  them  clings 
And  dnves  them  sIot'cs  thence,  to  keep  as  slaves  here; 

From  their  familiar  fields  afar  they  pass. 

Like  herds  to  winter  in  some  strange  morass. 

Poor  ^ouls  /  far  off  from  all  that  they  hold  dear. 
And  in  a  'land  that  hates  them  I      Who  shall  say 

That  at  the  bottom  of  their  hearts  they  bear 
Love  for  our  tyrant  /     /  should  like  to  lay 

Theyve  our  hate  for  him  in  their  pockets  !     Here, 
But  that  I  turned  in  haste  and  broke  away, 

I  should  have  kissed  a  corporal,  stiff  and  tall,^ 

And  like  a  scarecrow  stuck  against  the  wall:' 

Affinities  with  Browning  may  be  observed  in  these 
stanzas,  and  Browinng  meets  Giusti  half-way  in  Up  at 
a  I  Alla—Doivn  in  ihe  Cily. 

Another  popular  poet  claims  a  high  and  exceptional 
place  in  Italian  letters,  not  so  much  from  his  poetical 
rntl  as  from  his  vivid  and  uncompromising  realism.  The 
pe-uliar  domain   of    GlOACCHiNO   BELLI   (1791-1863)  is 


BELLI  :   GIORDANI 


369 


the  populace  of  Rome,  whose  humours,  joys,  and 
tragedies  he  has  made  his  own.  He  has  indeed  com- 
petitors, but,  as  his  editor  Morandi  observes,  these  are 
but  as  rivers  to  the  sea  in  comparison  witli  the  fabulous 
opulence  of  Belli,  who  has  depicted  the  life  around  him 
in  more  than  two  thousand  sonnets,  each  in  its  way  a 
little  masterpiece.  Almost  all  represent  some  scene  in 
the  life  of  the  people,  observed  in  his  daily  ramble,  and 
versihed  upon  his  return  home.  For  spirit  and  truth  to 
nature  most  of  them  are  almost  comparable  to  Theo- 
critus's  portrait  of  Praxinoe,  and  there  is  probably  not 
another  instance  in  the  world  of  the  life  of  a  great  city 
so  perfectly  delineated  in  verse,  or  of  such  an  enormous 
collection  of  sonnets  of  so  high  an  average  of  merit.  The 
drawback  to  their  general  enjoyment  is  their  inevitable 
composition  in  the  Roman  dialect,  lively,  coloured,  and 
full  of  comic  phrases,  but  uncouth  and  corrupt.  Another 
important  division  of  Belli's  work  is  the  political  sonnet, 
full  of  mordant  satire  on  the  abuses  of  the  Papal  govern- 
ment under  Gregory  XVI.,  not  the  less  veracious  because 
the  author  wished  to  recall  it  when  the  CathoHc  in  him 
ultimately  overcame  the  Liberal. 

The  patriotic  work  of  Giusti  and  of  Belli  was  thus  in 
a  measure  local ;  one  took  charge  of  Tuscany,  and  the 
other  of  Rome.  Another  distinguished  man  took  all 
Italy  (the  impossible  kingdom  of  the  Two  Sicilies  ex- 
cepted) for  his  province,  and  deserves  to  be  enumerated 
among  the  more  eminent  Italian  writers  of  the  nineteenth 
century  who  have  powerfully  contributed  to  the  regene- 
ration of  their  country.  PlETRO  GiORDAXi  (1774-1848) 
is  nevertheless  not  a  great  author,  and  perhaps  his 
highly  interesting  correspondence  is  the  only  portion  of 
his  writings  wiiich  will  retain  a  permanent  value.     But 


368 


ITALIAN   LITERATURE 

That  in  my  sou!  it  never  shall  he  spent ; 

Andho'iv  such  heavenly  harmony  in  the  brain 
Of  those  thiek-skuUed  barbarians  should  dwell, 
I  must  eon/ess  it  passes  me  to  tell. 

In  that  sad  hymn  I  felt  the  bitter  sweet 

Of  the  son}s  heard  in  childhood,  which  the  soul 

Learns  from  beloved  7'oices,  to  repeat 
To  its  own  ani^-uish  in  the  days  of  dole: 

A  thoui^ht  of  the  dear  mother,  a  retp^et, 
A  loni^in^i:  for  repose  and  love— the  whole 

Ant^uish  of  distant  exile  seemed  to  run 

Oi'cr  my  heart  and  leave  it  all  undone. 

When  the  strain  ceased,  it  left  me  pondering 

Tenderer  thoughts,  and  stronger  and  more  clear; 

These  men,  I  mused,  the  selfsame  despot  king 
Who  rules  on  Slavic  and  Italian  fear, 

Tears  from  their  homes  and  arms  that  round  them  cling. 
And  drives  them  shwes  thence,  to  keep  as  slaves  here; 

From  their  familiar  fields  afar  they  pass. 

Like  herds  to  winter  in  some  strange  morass. 

Poor  souls  !  far  of  from  all  that  they  hold  dear, 
A  nd  in  a  land  that  hates  them  !      Who  shall  say 

That  at  the  bottom  of  their  hearts  they  bear 
Lcn'cfor  our  tyrant  /     /  should  like  to  lay 

The^ve  our  hat e  for  him  in  their  pockets  I     Here, 
Tut  that  I  turned  in  haste  and  broke  away, 

J  should  have  kissed  a  corporal,  stiff  and  tall,^ 

And  like  a  scarecrow  stuck  against  the  wall.'' 

Affinities  with  Browning  may  be  observed  in  these 
stanzas,  and  Browning  meets  Giusti  half-way  m  Up  at 
a  Villa— Doivn  in  the  City. 

Another  popular  poet  chiims  a  high  and  exceptional 
place  in  Itahan  letters,  not  so  much  from  his  poetical 
r^ifl  as  from  his  vivid  and  uncompromising  realism.  The 
penuliar   domain   of    GiOACCHiNO   BELLI   (;i79i-i863)  is 


BELLI:    GIORDANI 


369 


the  populace  of  Rome,  whose  humours,  joys,  and 
tragedies  he  has  made  his  own.  He  has  indeed  com- 
petitors, but,  as  his  editor  Morandi  observes,  these  are 
but  as  rivers  to  the  sea  in  comparison  with  the  fabulous 
opulence  of  Belli,  who  has  depicted  the  life  around  him 
in  more  than  two  thousand  sonnets,  each  in  its  way  a 
little  masterpiece.  Almost  all  represent  some  scene  in 
the  life  of  the  people,  observed  in  his  daily  ramble,  and 
versified  upon  his  return  home.  For  spirit  and  truth  to 
nature  most  of  them  are  almost  comparable  to  Theo- 
critus's  portrait  of  I^raxinoe,  and  there  is  probably  not 
another  instance  in  the  world  of  the  life  of  a  great  city 
so  perfectly  delineated  in  verse,  or  of  such  an  enormous 
collection  of  sonnets  of  so  high  an  average  of  merit.  The 
drawback  to  their  general  enjoyment  is  their  inevitable 
composition  in  the  Roman  dialect,  lively,  coloured,  and 
full  of  comic  phrases,  but  uncouth  and  corrupt.  Another 
important  division  of  Belli's  work  is  the  political  sonnet, 
full  of  mordant  satire  on  the  abuses  of  the  Papal  govern- 
ment under  Gregory  XVI.,  not  the  less  veracious  because 
the  author  wished  to  recall  it  when  the  Catholic  in  him 
ultimately  overcame  the  Liberal. 

The  patriotic  work  of  Giusti  and  of  Belli  was  thus  in 
a  measure  local ;  one  took  charge  of  Tuscany,  and  the 
oth'jr  of  Rome.  Another  distinguished  man  took  all 
Italy  (the  impossible  kingdom  of  the  Two  Sicilies  ex- 
cepted) for  his  province,  and  deserves  to  be  enumerat.^d 
among  the  more  eminent  Italian  writers  of  the  nineteenth 
century  who  have  powerfully  contributed  to  the  regene- 
ration of  their  country.  PlETRO  GlORDAXI  (1774-1848) 
is  nevertheless  not  a  great  author,  and  perhaps  his 
highly  interesting  correspondence  is  the  only  portion  of 
his  wTitings  w^hich  will  retain  a  permanent  value.     But 


370 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE 


he  was  almost  the  mainsprinj^  of  the  Hterary  movement 
of  his  time.  ItaHan  authors  resorted  to  him  for  ideas,  as 
Enghsh  authors  resorted  to  Samuel  Rogers  for  break- 
fasts, and  neitlier  went  empty  away.  But  for  him 
Leopardi  might  have  wasted  his  hfe  on  chissical  philo- 
k)gy  and  verbal  criticism  ;  he  helped  Manzoni  and 
Giusti  to  their  fame  ;  he  lived  familiarly  with  Niccolini, 
Capponi,  and  Colletta,  and  was  the  intimate  friend  of 
Monti  and  Canova.  The  first  forty  years  of  his  life, 
spent  in  various  official  employments,  had  been  troubled 
and  needy,  but  he  ultimately  inherited  a  fortune,  and 
during  the  Thirty  Years'  Peace  his  activity  incessantly 
pervaded  Italian  letters  like  an  unseen  sap,  save  when  he 
came  forward  to  promote  a  savings-bank  or  an  infant- 
school,  or  got  himself  expelled  from  the  territories  of 
some  petty  prince.  His  style  is  higlily  linished  and 
polished,  but  is  tlie  chief  recommendation  of  his  writings, 
the  epistolary  excepted. 

Finally,  among  the  more  distinguished  authors  of  the 
period  who  systematically  laboured  for  the  deliverance 
and  regeneration  of  their  country  must  be  named  two 
most  illustrious  men,  both  called  upon  to  deal  with 
practical  affairs,  yet  chiefly  efficacious  through  their  writ- 
ings, ViNXEXZO  GiOBEKTi  and  Giusp:ppe  Mazzini.  Both 
were  subjects  of  the  King  of  Sardinia— Gioberti  a  royal 
chaplain  at  Turin  ;  Mazzini  a  man  of  letters  at  Genoa 
writing  essays  in  defence  of  the  romantic  school.  Both 
were  incarcerated  and  banished — Gioberti  through  the 
animosity  of  the  Jesuits,  Mazzini  as  a  Carbonaro.  Gio- 
berti betook  himself  to  France,  Mazzini  to  England. 
Gioberti  soon  obtained  an  European  reputation  by  his 
philosophical  writings,  but  does  not  appear  to  have 
materially  influenced  French  opinion  in  favour  of  his 


GIOBERTI 


371 


country.  Mazzini,  on  the  other  hand,  produced  great 
effects  by  his  mission  to  England,  where  the  "  swift,  yet 
still,  Ligurian  figure  ;  merciful  and  fierce  ;  true  as  steel, 
the  word  and  thought  of  him  limpid  as  water  "  (Carlyle),^ 
fascinated  the  best  men  and  women,  and  made  the  eman- 
cipation of  Italy  a  cause  dear  to  the  heart  of  the  people. 
On  the  other  hand,  he  misused  the  liberality  of  his 
friends  by  promoting  a  number  of  petty  revolts  and 
foolish  expeditions  which  commonly  ended  in  the  de- 
struction of  all  who  participated  in  them. 

Gioberti  accomplished  infinitely  more  for  the  national 
cause  by  his  great  book,  //  Primato  d'ltalia  (1845), 
which  dissuaded  Italy  from  abortive  conspiracies,  and 
preached  spiritual  as  a  preparation  for  political  unity. 
It  also,  by  its  own  merits  and  the  reputation  which 
the  author  had  already  gained  as  a  thinker,  compelled 
men  of  intellect  to  look  into  her  case.  Unfortunately, 
Gioberti  had  not  grasped  the  necessity  of  absolute  ad- 
ministrative concentration,  and  advocated  confederacy 
among  the  various  Italian  states  ;  an  idea  irreconcilable 
with  that  of  unity,  and  moreover  utterly  impracticable 
on  account  of  the  centrifugalism  of  the  sovereigns  con- 
cerned. This  made  it  possible  for  Gioberti,  when  at 
length  he  had  himself  become  minister  at  Turin,  to 
propose  that  Piedmont  should  anticipate  the  inevitable 
restoration  of  the  sovereigns  of  Central  Italy  by  Austria 
or  France  by  restoring  them  herself;  a  step  which  would 
have  ruined  the  house  of  Savoy  in  public  opinion,  and 
consequently  have  destroyed  all  hope  of  an  united  Italy. 
Gioberti  soon  retired  to  Paris,  where  he  died  suddenly 
in  1852,  just  as  a  new  chapter  of  events  was  opening, 

*  There  is  a  lively  portrait  of  him  in  Ruffini's  Lorenzo  Benom\  where  he  is 
introduced  as  "  Fantasio." 


372 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE 


in  which,  taught  by  experience,  he  would  probably  have 
performed  a  more  efticient  part. 

It  w^ould  have  been  well  for  the  political,  though  not 
the  literary  reputation  of  Mazzini  if  he  had  died  about  the 
same  time  in  the  good  odour  of  the  courage  and  capacity 
he  had  shown  in  the  defence  of  Rome  acjainst  the  French. 
Although  he  had  a  great  advantage  over  Gioberti  in  his 
perception  of  the  need  of  national  unity,  he  was  unable  to 
conceive  of  this  otherwise  than  under  Republican  forms. 
He  was  hence  almost  as  ready  to  thwart  the  Piedmont- 
ese  as  to  expel  the  Austrian  ;  he  opposed  every  practical 
scheme  for  the  redemption  of  Italy,  from  the  Crimean 
expedition  downwards  ;  and  his  public  career  down  to 
his  death  in  1872  is  a  series  of  lamentable  mistakes.  He 
could  not  see  that  his  mission  w^as  performed  when  he 
had  once  breathed  life  into  the  dry  bones,  and  he  had 
no  appreciation  of  the  practical  genius  of  a  man  like 
Cavour,  fully  as  indispensable  to  the  common  cause  as 
his  own  ideal  enthusiasm.  Happily  there  was  another 
and  more  extensive  field  in  which  this  enthusiasm  was 
perfectly  in  place.  Mazzini  was  much  more  than  a  con- 
spirator, more  even  than  a  patriot.  As  a  man  of  letters, 
he  concerned  himself  with  German,  English,  and  Sla- 
vonic literature,  and  opened  up  new  horizons  to  Italian 
thought.  Polish  literature  was  especially  congenial  to 
him,  for  at  that  period  its  inspiration  came  from  worlds 
beyond  mortal  ken,  and  Mazzini,  recoiling  from  the 
prosaic  common -sense  of  the  eighteenth  century,  pos- 
sessed the  vein  of  mysticism  common  to  contemporaries 
other  wis  J  so  dissimilar  as  Lamennais,  Balzac,  George 
Sand,  Newman,  Mickiewicz.  This  gave  a  singular  eleva- 
tion to  his  etliical  thought.  A  severe  thinker,  he  medi- 
tated much  on   human  rights  and  human  duties,  and 


MAZZINI 


Z7Z 


assigned  precedence  to  the  latter.  "Think  less  of  your 
rights  and  more  of  your  duties  "  is  the  burden  of  much 
ethical  admonition  addressed,  especially  during  his  later 
years,  to  the  working  classes,  and  containing  some  of 
the  noblest  and  most  dignified  teaching  to  be  found  in 
the  world.  Mazzini  had  little  sympathy  with  some  of  the 
more  recent  developments  of  democracy;  his  life  had 
been  one  of  disinterested  privation  for  great  ends,  and 
he  thought  little,  perhaps  too  little,  of  merely  material 
ameliorations.  His  mysticism,  his  austere  magnanimity, 
and  his  deeply  religious  feeling  fmd  their  most  perfect 
expression  in  his  noble  epistle  to  the  members  of  the 
(Ecumenical  Council  of  1869,  which,  along  with  Presi- 
dent Lincoln's  oration  on  the  battlefield  of  Gettysburg, 
crowns  the  public  eloquence  of  our  time  ;  nor  needs 
the  age  which  has  produced  two  such  deliverances  to 
envy  in  this  respect  the  age  of  Pericles. 

Time  has  worked  and  is  working  for  Mazzini ;  the  fanati- 
cism and  unreason  of  one  side  of  his  character,  having 
produced  no  permanent  ill  effect,  fall  more  and  more 
into  oblivion,  or  are  recognised  as  the  necessary  con- 
ditions of  his  unique  gifts.  His  failings  were  the  failings 
of  a  prophet  :  little  as  he  was  qualified  to  guide  the 
movement  he  had  evoked,  none  but  such  an  one  as 
he  could  have  brought  about  the  national  resurrection 
truly  described  by  Mr.  Swinburne  in  the  poem  where  he 
as  truly  hails  in  Mazzini  the  third  Italian  prophet  after 
Dante  and  Michael  Angelo  : 

"  And  the  third  prophet  standini^  by  her  grave ^ 

Stretched  forth  his  hand  and  touched  hcr^  and  her  eyes 
Opened  as  sudden  suns  in  heaifen  might  rise, 
And  her  soul  caught  from  his  the  faith  to  save  : 
Faith  above  creeds,  faith  btyoud  records,  born 
Ofthepure^  nakcd^fruitful,  awful  inomP 
25 


Utifcfcjfc-lf'^**-'-'-  J^v-j..^--.jqLJ^»-J^*i,^T.^t.*i-.  -TyiMiMirt.BJaaiMd»..i/1ii  raririTfltai UllM'-iiirii IfcL-'hiiaa.  ICjA.JnaMr''-*-^  ■  '^-■^MaKVaiJ^^-*'^*'--**^-''*lSaiuiBJ»y-»Vbi*n.uAtAJiiWi\Ai^'>^^^*'-'-'  --'•'^ 


fauftf^iridaaahiihja 


374 


ITALIAN   LITERATURE 


There  is  an  ancient  story  of  a  princess  carried  off  by 
a  dragon  and  confined  on  a  desert  island  in  the  most 
remote  recesses  of  the  ocean,  who  owed  her  deUverance 
to  the  joint  exertions  of  three  most  eminent  brothers, 
none  of  whom  could  have  accomplished  anything  with- 
out the  other  two.  One,  an  astrologer,  discovered  the 
place  of  her  captivity ;  the  second,  a  mechanician,  made 
a  winged  horse  ;  upon  which  the  third,  a  soldier,  pro- 
ceeded to  the  spot  and  slew  the  dragon.  In  the  libera- 
tion of  Italy  the  part  of  the  astrologer  fell  to  Mazzini, 
that  of  the  mechanician  to  Cavour,  and  that  of  the 
soldier  to  Garibaldi. 


CHAPTER  XXV 

THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY— MIDDLE  PERIOD 

Literature,  as  a  rule,  must  ever  be  on  the  side  of 
liberty,  for  one  conclusive  reason  among  others — that 
liberty  is  the  life  of  literature.  Hence  every  man  of 
letters  is  instinctively  a  partisan  of  freedom ;  and  even 
should  his  political  or  religious  opinions  drive  him  to 
support  a  tyranny  by  which  these  are  protected,  or 
should  he  be  willing  to  acquiesce  in  a  despotism  which 
maintains  peace  and  encourages  art,  he  must  yet  dis- 
approve of  restraint  upon  his  own  productiveness,  and 
this  inevitable  concession  implies  all  the  rest.  Poetry 
— and  the  remark  may  in  its  measure  be  extended  to 
every  department  of  intellectual  labour  implying  crea- 
tion or  even  construction — has  been  well  said  to  repre- 
sent the  best  and  happiest  moments  of  the  best  and 
happiest  minds,  a  virtue  and  felicity  to  be  understood 
as  referring  solely  to  the  intellectual  sphere.  That  is, 
there  is  no  activity  so  pleasurable  as  production,  or,  by 
consequence,  anything  so  intolerable  as  restraint. 

The  history  of  European  literature  for  the  half-century 
following  the  fall  of  Napoleon  is,  therefore,  in  the  main, 
that  of  a  force  enlisted  to  contend  with  the  Governments 
and  the  various  sinister  interests  which  strove  to  ignore 
the  Revolution  and  restore  the  state  of  affairs  which 
had  existed  in  the  eighteenth  century.     Many  illustrious 

375 


^^ijgi^yii^^j^yiig^^^igggig^g^^m^gjiij 


SMB 


rrtMirriiiiiMtiiiiiWMifiii  ttiimnl 


jiiitliMahfli 


.ritariBMMhMftMj--"---"--  -"---"■iHiMtrfwriMiii'yMrtrtfirr  th'T<i&l'#iimrfllinilllliilt^^ 


Z7<^ 


ITALIAN   LITERATURE 


autluM's,  no  (Uniht,  c^pcciallv  in  Knj^land,  niori'  or  less 
lavourcd  this  tcnclencv,  but  their  literary  pia:tice  was 
Ci>nimonly  inconsistent  with  their  political  princij^Ls. 
Scott,  Wordsworth,  Coleridi^e,  Southey,  Chateaubriand, 
uH^L^ht  be  reactionary  as  politicians,  but  in  the  literary 
s[^here  they  were  innovators  and  iconoclasts.  The  study 
oi  their  writin^^  c<uild  not  but  eni^ender  a  habit  of  mind 
entirely  inconsistent  with  the  deference  to  authority  re- 
quired tor  the  perpetuation  oi  the  ancient  regime  in  State 
and  Church.  No  man,  for  example,  more  sincerely  de- 
plored the  tendencies  (^i  his  times  than  Niebiihr,  but  he 
should  liave  thoui^ht  of  them  before  he  meddled  with  the 
history  oi  Rome,  i^y  pri)vmg  its  legendary  character,  he 
had  done  more  to  unsettle  allegiance  to  tradition  than 
could  have  been  accomplished  by  the  wit  and  malice  of 
a  hundred  Heines.  We  are  thus  justified  in  regarding 
the  literature  of  the  nineteenth  century  as  in  the  main 
a  great  liberating  force,  and  in  the  long-run  favour- 
able to  sound  conservatism  also,  since  it  aimed  at  pro- 
curing that  liberty  for  the  human  spirit  without  which 
renovation  was  as  impossible  as  demolition. 

If  there  was  any  country  in  Europe  where  literature 
might  be  expected  to  be  unequivocally  on  the  side 
of  Liberty,  it  was  Italy  ;  for  Italy  alone  had  to  reckon 
with  foreign  as  well  as  domestic  oppressors.  In  fact,  the 
general  tendency  of  Italian  literature  during  the  period 
under  review  is  more  uniformly  liberal  than  that  of  any 
other ;  but  at  the  same  time  its  expression  is  more 
restrained  than  that  of  any  other,  for  the  conclusive 
reason  that  an  Italian  writer  could  only  obtain  liberty  of 
speech  at  the  price  of  exile.  Love  of  country  is,  never- 
thelt  ^,  the  dominant  thought,  which  colours  it  through- 
out as  the  soil  colours  the  flower.     The  men  of  greatest 


PATRIOTIC  LITERATURE 


377 


genius  and  most  prominent  association  with  the  national 
movement  have  been  treated  of  in  previous  chapters,  but 
the  host  of  distinguished  if  less  illustrious  authors  who 
must  he  briefly  reviewed  in  this,  was  not  less  animated 
with  patriotic  feeling,  and  this  pervading  spirit  imparts 
to  the  Italian  literature  of  the  period  unity  and  dignity, 
and  entitles  it  to  a  higher  place  in  the  general  history  of 
literature  than  could  have  been  procured  for  it  by  the 
mere  ability  of  its  representatives. 

One  apparent  exception  to  this  generally  liberal  and 
patriotic  tendency  is  not  really  an  exception.  The  New 
Catholic  reaction  which  was  a  necessary  consequence  of 
the  Revolution,  whatever  it  may  have  been  among  the 
priesthood  and  the  less  cultivated  classes,  was  neither 
illiberal  nor  unpatriotic  among  men  of  letters.  Many  of 
the  most  eminent  of  these  w^ere  fervent  Catholics,  and  as 
such  felt  themselves  in  a  strait  between  the  claims  of  re- 
ligion and  of  country.  As  the  head  of  the  Church,  the 
Pope  was  entitled  to  the  profoundest  veneration,  but  as 
temporal  prince,  he  was  as  much  supported  by  Austrian 
bayonets  as  any  of  the  rest.  Could  he  be  promoted 
from  this  undignitied  position  to  that  of  spiritual  King  of 
Italy  by  the  union  of  all  Italian  states  into  a  confederacy 
under  his  auspices  ?  This  project,  if  Utopian,  was  yet 
natural,  generous,  and  in  no  respect  inconsistent  with 
true  patriotic  feeling.  It  broke  down  from  the  demon- 
stration furnished  by  the  course  of  events  of  the  incom- 
patibility of  Italian  confederacy  w^th  Italian  unity,  but, 
by  the  exertions  of  its  opponents,  no  less  than  those  of 
its  supporters,  it  left  deep  traces  upon  literature. 

This  idea  was  the  especial  property  oi  Vincenzo 
Gioberti,  alreadv  mentioned  among  the  men  to  whom 
Italian  regeneration  owes  most.     Its  very  fallacy  was  a 


Z7^ 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE 


powerful  aid  to  the  popular  cause,  for  it  conciliated  many 
who  would  have  shrunk  from  openly  assailing  the  Pope's 
secular  authority,  while  at  the  same  time  it  was  not  so 
obviously  unsound  as  to  be  incapable  of  being  main- 
tained in  good  faith  until  refuted  by  the  course  of  events. 
Although,  nevertheless,  Gioberti's  essay  on  Italy's  spiritual 
and  intellectual  primacy  is  the  most  important  of  his 
works,  it  almost  disappears  in  the  mass  of  the  remainder, 
treating  for  the  most  part  of  religion,  or  of  moral  or 
speculative  philosophy.  Among  them  was  a  violent 
attack  on  the  writings  of  the  most  eminent  Italian 
philosopher  of  the  age,  Antonio  Rosmixi -Serbati 
(1797- 1855),  who  in  turn  accused  Gioberti  of  pan- 
theism. The  great  purpose  of  Rosmini's  philosophy 
may  be  defined  to  be  the  perfecting  of  St.  Thomas 
Aquinas's  system  by  expelling  the  element  it  had  derived 
from  Aristotle,  which  in  Rosmini's  view  led  direct  to 
pantheism  and  materialism.  He  laboured  hard  at  this 
object  all  his  life,  but  died  before  his  work  was  done. 
It  says  much  for  his  genius  that  one  so  encumbered 
with  childish  ultramontane  notions  should  have  w^on 
the  acknowledged  rank  he  holds  among  the  first  philo- 
sophical thinkers.  He  is  equally  well  known  as  the 
founder  of  a  religious  Order,  the  constant  antagonist  of 
the  Jesuits,  and  the  author  of  the  Five  Wounds  of  the 
Church,  an  appeal  for  reform  whose  honest  frankness  was 
used  by  his  enemies  to  deprive  him  of  the  cardinal's  hat 
that  had  been  promised  him.  His  Order  still  flourishes, 
his  system  is  still  potent,  and  his  memory,  honoured  every- 
where, is  almost  adored  in  his  native  place,  Roveredo  in 
the  Italian  Tvrol. 

Another  philosopher  influential  on  Italian  thought  was 
Giovanni    Domenico    Romagnosi   (1761-1835),   whose 


MAMIANI 


379 


importance  chiefly  consists  in  his  application  of  philo- 
sophy to  legal  and  political  science,  and  his  clear  pre- 
vision of  the  coming  deliverance  of  Italy. 

No  Italian  of  his  age,  perhaps,  was  more  thoroughly 
admirable  in  every  respect  than  Terenzio  Mamiani 
(1799-1885),  an  approved  patriot,  a  wise  statesman,  a 
sound  and  sober  thinker  in  religion  and  philosophy,  an 
elegant  poet,  and  a  man  excellent  in  every  relation  of  life. 
With  more  angularity  of  character,  he  would,  perhaps, 
have  possessed  more  creative  force,  and  impressed  him- 
self more  powerfully  on  the  imagination.  The  dignified 
eloquence  of  his  meditative  poetry,  usually  in  blank  verse, 
and  of  his  discourses,  political  or  academical,  is  often 
very  impressive,  but  the  form  seems  more  remarkable 
than  the  substance.  Like  most  of  the  best  Italians  of 
his  day,  he  spent  his  youth  in  exile,  his  prime  in  offtce, 
and  his  old  age  in  study  and  composition.  A  good 
selection  from  his  voluminous  writings  has  been  pub- 
lished with  a  memoir  by  Giovanni  Mestica,  the  editor 

of  Petrarch. 

A  connecting  link  between  the  thinkers  and  the  his- 
torians is  formed  by  GiUvSEPPE  Ferrari  (181 2- 1872). 
A  disciple  of  Romagnosi,  he  imported  abstract  ideas 
into  his  survey  of  the  revolutions  of  Italy  since  the 
downfall  of  the  Roman  Empire  —  a  very  readable  if 
not  always  a  very  convincing  book.  Ferrari  was  also  a 
distinguished  publicist,  and  an  indefatigable  pamphleteer 
in  the  cause  of  liis  country. 

History  has  been  extensively  cultivated  in  Italy  during 
the  nineteenth  century  ;  and  although  many  histories 
were  but  popular  compendiums,  or  magnified  party 
pamphlets,  or  mere  mcmoires  pour  servir,  others  have 
gained  for  the  writers  honourable  rank  among  first-class 


38o 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE 


historians.  The  most  extensive  in  scale  and  imposing  in 
subject  are  histories  by  Carlo  Botta  (1766-1837)  of  the 
American  War  of  Independence  and  of  Italy  from  1789 
to  1 8 14.  The  former  is  the  best  history  of  the  subject 
out  of  the  United  vStatcs  ;  the  latter,  though  taxed  with 
partiality,  is  a  great  and  invaluable  work.  His  continua- 
tion of  Guicciardini  is  of  less  account.  Botta's  style  is 
severe  and  dignified  ;  too  archaic  in  diction,  and  occa- 
sionally dehcient  in  flexibility,  but  he  always  writes  with 
the  consciousness  of  his  mission  which  becomes  the 
historian.  He  was  a  determined  enemy  of  the  romantic 
school.  A  Piedmontese  by  birth,  he  had  been  concerned 
in  the  disturbances  of  the  early  revolutionary  period,  and 
had  made  several  campaigns  in  the  capacity  of  an  army 
surgeon.  Become  temporarily  a  Frenchman  by  the 
annexation  of  Piedmont  to  France,  he  had  held  office 
under  Napoleon,  whom  he  displeased  by  his  frankness. 
After  Napoleon's  fall  he  lived  chiefly  in  France.  Though 
always  a  patriot  as  regarded  the  independence  of  Italy, 
the  melancholy  deceptions  of  revolutionary  times  led  him 
at  last  to  deem  his  countrymen  only  lit  for  an  enlightened 
despotism. 

A  stancher  liberal  was  Pietro  Colletta  (1770-1831) 
and  an  even  more  eminent  historian.  A  Neapolitan 
officer  of  engineers,  he  served  under  Murat,  but  was, 
nevertheless,  maintained  in  his  rank  by  the  restored 
Bourbons.  He  was  Minister  of  War  under  the  Constitu- 
tional Government  of  1820,  and  after  its  overthrow  was 
for  some  time  imprisoned  at  Brunn  in  Austria,  where 
his  health  suffered  greatly.  Upon  his  release  he  settled 
at  Florence,  and  devoted  himself  to  writing  the  history  of 
Naples  from  the  accession  of  the  Bourbon  dynasty  in 
1734  up  to  1825.     He  was  wholly  inexperienced  as  an 


COLLETTA 


381 


author,  but  succeeded  in  imparting  classic  form  to  his 
work  by  dint  of  infinite  labour  and  careful  imitation 
of  Tacitus,  for  which  the  imperious  brevity  natural  to 
him,  intensified  by  the  habits  of  military  life,  admirably 
qualified  him.  His  work  is  one  of  the  most  marrow^y 
and  sinewy  of  histories,  and  is  especially  valuable  w^here 
he  speaks  as  an  eye-witness.  It  deals  fully  with  financial 
and  economical  as  well  as  political  and  military  affairs. 

Another  excellent  historian  has  been  ahnost  lost  to 
Italy  by  the  circumstances  attending  the  publication 
of  his  book.  Giovanni  Battista  Testa,  an  exile  in 
England,  published  in  1853  his  history  of  the  Lombard 
League,  at  Doncaster,  a  place  better  affected  to  the  horse 
of  Neptune  than  to  the  olive  of  Pallas,  and,  thus  pro- 
ducing invita  Miner-jay  has  been  almost  ignored.  In  fact, 
he  is  an  admirable  historian,  lucid  and  delightful  in  his 
narrative,  and  his  style  is  so  fashioned  upon  the  purest 
models,  that  he  might  seem  to  have  come  straight  out  of 
the  sixteenth  century.  This  might  be  reprehended  as 
affectation,  but  the  objection,  if  in  any  respect  well 
founded,  has  no  application  to  the  excellent  English 
version  (1877),  ^  book  which  cannot  be  too  strongly 
recommended  to  historians  desirous  of  acquiring  the 
pregnant  brevity  so  essential  in  this  age  of  multiplication 
of  books  to  all  w^ho  would  catcli  and  retain  the  ear  of 
posterity. 

The  friend  and  biographer  of  Manzoni,  and  imitator 
of  his  style  in  a  successful  novel,  Margkerita  Piisterla^ 
Cesare  Cantu  w^as  a  long-lived  and  industrious,  and 
consequently  a  voluminous  author.  His  position  is 
wtII  marked  as  almost  the  onlv  considerable  writer  of 
his  time  who  favoured  political  and  ecclesiastical  reac- 
tion, and  the  resulting  unpopularity  has  led  him  to  be 


^imis^Mt^^^^M 


382 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE 


unjustly  depreciated  as  a  man  of  letters;  he  is  always 
interesting^,  always  individual,  and  his  principal  works, 
the  History  of  Italy  from  1750  to  1850  and  his  History 
of  Italian  Heretics,  though  disfigured  by  party  spirit, 
are  important  books.  The  latter  is  still  the  standard 
authority  on  the  subject,  though  it  will  hardly  be  allowed 

to  continue  so. 

An  unique  position  among  Italian  historians  is  occupied 
by  MiCHELE  Amaki  (1805-89),  the  Orientalist  and  national 
historian  of  Sicily.  Detesting  the  Neapolitan  oppression 
of  his  native  island,  he  took  up  the  investigation  of  the 
Sicilian  Vespers,  and  depicted  this  great  event  as  not 
the  consequence  of  a  conspiracy  subtly  organised  by 
John  of  Procida,  but  as  a  spontaneous  uprising  against 
intolerable  oppression.  The  allusion  did  not  escape  the 
Neapolitan  Government,  and  Amari  found  it  expedient 
to  withdraw  to  Paris,  where  he  studied  Arabic  as  a  pre- 
paration for  his  yet  more  important  History  of  Sicily 
under  Moslem  Dominion,  published  between  1854  and 
1872.  In  the  interim  he  had  taken  part  in  the  Sicilian 
insurrection,  and  after  the  iinal  expulsion  of  tiie  Bour- 
bons, w^as  successively  Minister  of  Public  Instruction 
and  professor  of  Arabic  at  Florence,  contiiuiing  to 
write  and  edit  books  on  his  favourite  subjects.  No 
historian    has    a    higher    reputation    for    erudition    and 

sagacity. 

Giuseppe  Micali  (1780-1844)  devoted  himself  to  a 
subject  even  more  difficult  than  Amari's,  and  one  in- 
capable of  an  authoritative  solution  of  its  numberless 
problems.  His  Storia  degli  Antichi  Popoli  Italiani  is 
nevertheless  a  highly  important  work,  which  exploded 
much  error,  if  it  did  not  establish  much  truth. 

A  Neapolitan,  Carlo  Troya  (1784  1858)  was  to  have 


TROYA 


383 


written  the  History  of  Italy  in  the  Middle  Ages  from 
^76  to  1321,  which  by  his  method  of  working  might  have 
required  forty  volumes,  but  he  only  arrived  at  Charle- 
magne and  only  filled  sixteen.  The  book  is,  as  Settem- 
brini  remarks,  a  thesaurus  rather  than  a  history,  but 
cannot  be  opened  without  encountering  valuable  in- 
formation and  judicious  criticism.  Troya  loved  the 
Middle  Age  without  idolising  it  ;  his  liberal  opinions, 
much  against  his  will,  made  the  indefatigable  bookworm 
a  Minister  under  one  of  the  ephemeral  Neapolitan  con- 
stitutions, and  there  was  sense  as  well  as  wit  in  the  reply 
of  the  restored  Ferdinand  when  advised  to  arrest  him  : 
"  No  !  leave  him  in  the  Middle  Ages  ! " 

Three  distinguished  statesmen  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury, Cesare  Balbo,  Gino  Capponi,  and  Luigi  Carlo 
Farini,  respectively  wrote  histories  of  much  worth  ; 
Balbo  an  abridged  history  of  Italy,  and  Capponi  one 
of  the  Florentine  republic,  while  Farini  chronicled  the 
transactions  of  the  States  of  the  Church  from  18 14  to 
1850.  Farini's  is  the  most  important  and  authoritative 
of  these  w^orks,  as  he  has  made  the  field  entirely  his 
own.  Balbo  and  Capponi,  however,  patricians  and  men 
of  w^ealth,  did  even  more  for  historical  studies  by  their 
encouragement  and  pecuniary  assistance  than  by  their 
own  writings.  The  great  Ministers,  Cavour,  Ricasoli, 
and  Minghetti  claim  a  place  in  literary  history  as  orators 
and  pamphleteers. 

For  some  reason  difficult  to  understand,  biography 
has  not  of  late  flourished  in  Italy.  No  country  is  so 
nuich  overrun  with  little  ephemeral  memoirs  of  little 
ephemeral  people,  and  there  are  many  extremely  valu- 
able studies  of  particular  episodes  in  the  lives  of  cele- 
brated men,  of  scientitic  rather  than  literary  merit.     The 


MiUHi 


aam 


^mmi^^[SiS!^i^!^^^H^i&ik 


wssM 


3^4 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE 


very  important  works  of  Villari,  Pasolini,  and  Solerti 
beloni^  to  a  later  period  than  that  now  under  review, 
which  possesses  only  two  biographies  of  decided  literary 
pretensions,  both  autobiographic. 

So  important  was  the  public  career  of  Massimo 
d'Azeglio  (1798-1866),  a  fervent  patriot,  but  also  a 
prudent  statesman,  for  nobility  of  character  second  to 
no  contemporary,  that  his  memoirs  might  have  been 
expected  to  have  been  very  serious.  On  the  contrary, 
they  are  eminently  lively  and  gay,  in  part,  perhaps, 
from  their  terminating  at  the  beginning  of  1846,  be- 
fore the  author's  heaviest  cares  had  come  upon  him. 
GirsEPPE  MONTANELLI  (1813-62),  One  of  the  triumvirs 
in  the  inauspicious  Tuscan  revolution  of  1849,  though 
equally  honest,  was  entirely  deficient  in  the  ballast  that 
steadied  D'Azeglio.  But  his  very  levity  and  inconstancy 
lend  vivacity  to  his  memoirs  of  the  Tuscan  affairs  of 
his  time,  and  the  paradoxes  of  his  character,  faithfully 
depicted  by  himself,  make  a  striking  and  memorable 
portrait.  His  style  is  unequal,  but  excellent  when  at 
its  best. 

NiCCOLO  TOMMASEO,  a  Dalmatian  (1802-74)  forms 
a  connecting  link  between  history  and  belles-lettres. 
With  marvellous  versatility  he  essayed  history,  politics, 
moral  and  speculative  philosophy,  biography,  philology, 
criticism  and  poetry,  distinguishing  himself  in  all  without 
producing  great  or  enduring  work  in  any.  His  greatest 
distinction,  perhaps,  was  attained  as  an  Italian  gram- 
marian and  lexicographer  ;  but  as  a  critic  he  wielded 
great  authority,  and  powerfully  contributed  to  the 
development  of  literature.  He  was  essentially  the  man 
of  his  own  times,  and  seemed  to  resume  their  various 
aspects   in    himself,   a    sound   Catholic    and   an    ardent 


THE  ROMANTIC  SCHOOL 


38S 


liberal  ;  a  classicist  and  a  romanticist  ;  a  conservative 
and  an  innovator  ;  impetuous  yet  moderate  in  his  aims ; 
frequently  inconsistent  with  himself,  yet  ever  controlled 
by  an  austere  sense  of  duty  ;  a  fme  and  even  brilliant 
writer,  who  yet  could  achieve  no  durable  work.  His 
account  of  his  exile  at  Corfu,  nevertheless,  deserves  to 
live  for  its  style,  although  the  theme  is  insufficient. 
Tommaseo  was  a  man  of  marked  character,  disin- 
terested, independent  and  impracticable  ;  rejecting  the 
public  honours  which  he  had  well  earned  by  his  share 
in  the  defence  of  Venice,  he  spent  his  later  years  at 
Florence,  where,  although  totally  blind,  he  worked  in- 
domitably to  the  last.  He  should  be  endeared  to 
England  as  the  author  of  the  fine  inscription  placed 
upon  the  house  of  Elizabeth  Barrett  Browning. 

The  history  of  Italian  poetry  during  the  post-Napo- 
leonic era,  after  deducting  the  great  names  of  Leopardi 
and  Giusti,  is  in  the  main  the  history  of  the  romantic 
school.  It  has  been  remarked  that  this  school  is  not 
congenial  to  the  Italian  genius,  and  that  its  temporary 
prevalence  could  only  occur  through  the  decay  of  the 
classical  tradition  and  the  inevitable  reaction  from  the 
excesses  of  the  Revolution.  It  was  further  prejudiced 
in  Italian  eyes  by  the  ecclesiastical  colouring  which  it 
could  not  help  assuming.  Most  of  the  literary  youth 
of  Italy,  though  they  might  not  be  bad  Catholics,  were 
still  better  patriots,  and  although  their  compositions 
might  be  influenced  by  Scott  and  Goethe,  were  utterly 
averse  to  the  mediaeval  development  which  the  romantic 
idea  was  receiving  in  France  and  Germany.  This  was 
particularly  the  case  with  the  first  poet  of  eminence 
who  imbibed  romantic  feeling  from  Manzoni  and  broke 
entirely  with  the  already  attenuated  classicism  of  Monti 


386 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE 


and  Foscolo.  Giovanni  Berchet  (1783-1851),  although 
of  French  descent,  was  a  devoted  Italian  patriot,  whose 
first  works  of  importance  were  published  in  London, 
where  he  had  been  obliged  to  seek  refuge.  He  began 
by  denouncing  the  conduct  of  the  English  Government 
towards  the  people  of  Parga,  and  followed  this  up  by  a 
succession  of  stirring  ballads,  mostly  of  patriotic  ten- 
dency, and  a  longer  poem,  Fantasies  a  vision  of  the  past 
glories  of  the  Lombard  League.  In  style  these  poems 
resemble  the  romantic  poetry  or  Germany  and  England, 
without  a  vestige  of  classical  influence,  but  also  with  no 
trace  of  the  worship  of  the  past,  except  as  an  example  to 
the  present,  or  anything  of  the  mystic  spirit  of  genuine 
romanticism.  Well  timed  as  they  were,  their  effect  wms 
extraordinary  ;  but  whetlier  antique  or  contemporary  in 
subject,  they  were  essentially  poems  of  the  day,  and  such 
poetry  cannot  continue  to  be  read  unless  it  attains  the 
level  of  Manzoni's  ode  on  the  death  of  Napoleon  and 
Tennyson's  on  the  death  of  Wellington.  This  Berchet 
knew.  "  My  aim  was  not,"  he  said  on  one  occasion, 
"  to  write  a  fine  poem,  but  to  perform  a  fine  action." 
His  style  is  consequently  defective  ;  his  poetry  w^as  not 
written  to  be  criticised,  but  to  inspire  and  inflame,  and 
fully  answered  its  purpose.  "  He  has  found,"  says  Settem- 
brini,  "  all  the  maledictions  that  can  possibly  be  hurled 
against  the  foreigner."  Upon  Charles  Albert's  conver- 
sion to  the  national  cause,  Berchet  returned  to  Italy,  and 
died  a  member  of  the  Sardinian  Parliament,  universally 
honoured  and  beloved,  nor  will  his  countrymen  forget 
him. 

"Accursed,"  adds  Settembrini,  '^  be  the  Italian  who 
forgets  Gabkiele  Rossetti."  Rossetti  (1785 -1854) 
assuredly  will  not  be  forgotten  by  England,  for  which 


ROSSETTI:    PRATI 


387 


he  has  done  what  no  other  inhabitant  of  these  isles  ever 
did  in  begetting   two  great  poets.      His  claims  to  the 
gratitude  of  his  countrymen  are  of  quite  another  sort, 
resting  chiefly  upon  the  spirit  and  fluency  of  his  political 
poems,  which  helped  to  keep  the  flame  of  patriotism  alive 
at  home,  while  the  exiled  author  was  teaching  Italian  at 
King's  College.     His  life  is  well  known  as  an  appendage 
to  the  biography  of  his  more  celebrated  son.     It  is  one 
of  the   most   interesting   speculations   imaginable   what 
kind    of    poetry    Dante    Gabriel    Rossetti    would    have 
written  if  he  had  been  born  and  brought  up  in  Italy  ; 
certain  it  is  that  no  prefigurement  of  his  singular  alliance 
of  purity  and  transparency  of  feeling  with  intricacy  of 
thought  and  opulence  of  illustration,  or  of  his  objectivity 
and  marvellous  pictorial  gift,  is  to  be  found  in  his  father's 
simple,  natural,  rather  overfluent  verse.     The  elder  Ros- 
setti may,  nevertheless,  be  ranked  among  the  poets  of 
the  romantic  school ;  and  a  similar  place  belongs  to  the 
amiable  Luigi  Carrer  (1801-53)  ^^^  account  of  his  ballads, 
the  most  successful  of  his  works.    Francesco  dall'  Ongaro, 
a  good  lyric  poet  in  other  departments,  applied  the  popu- 
lar storndlo   to  the    purposes    of   patriotic    poetry  with 
eminent  success. 

Two  poets  of  more  importance  enjoyed  for  a  time 
great  renovvn,  but  their  reputation,  without  becoming 
extinct,  has  considerably  declined.  Giovanni  Prati 
(i8i5-54)»  '^  native  of  the  Italian  Tyrol,  gained  great 
reputation  in  1841  by  a  narrative  poem  in  blank  verse, 
Ediucfiegarda,  founded  upon  a  tragic  event  in  tire  family 
of  the  great  Venetian  patriot  Daniele  Manin.  It  is  a 
poor  apology  for  adultery,  but  in  sentimentality,  though 
not  in  morality,  belongs  to  the  school  of  Lamartine, 
wiiose  Jocelyn  was  then  at  the  meridian  of  its  celebrity. 


388 


ITALIAN   LITERATURE 


In  consequence,  notwithstanding  much  real  poetical 
merit,  it  bears  that  fatal  impress  of  the  boudoir  which 
disfigures  so  much  of  the  best  pictorial  as  well  as 
poetical  work  of  tlie  time.  Its  success  encouraged 
Prati  to  produce  several  volumes  of  lyrics,  spirited, 
melodious,  but  too  fluent.  His  facility,  like  Monti's, 
approached  the  faculty  of  improvisation,  but  Monti's 
tawny  torrent  has  shrunk  in  Prati  into  a  silver  nil, 
equally  swift  but  by  no  means  equally  majestic.  He 
is  nevertheless  a  poet,  and  in  a  particular  manner  the 
poet  of  the  brief  interval  of  hope  and  joy  wiiich  accom- 
panied the  uprising  of  1848.  The  national  feeling  of  the 
time  remains  embodied  in  these  verses,  the  most  per- 
manently valuable  of  his  writings  ;  for  the  more  imagina- 
tive and  ambitious  productions  of  his  later  years,  such  as 
Satana  e  le  Grade  or  Armando,  though  interesting,  belong 
to  the  fundimientally  unsound  genre  of  adaptation  from 

Fatist, 

Another  poet  once  in  the  enjoyment  of  a  popularity 
which  he  has  failed  to  retain  is  Alkakdo  Aleardi 
(1812-78).  He  has  too  much  elegance  and  feeling  to 
be  forgotten,  but  wants  force  ;  his  general  attitude  seems 
not  inaccurately  indicated  in  his  own  description  of  his 
heroine  Arnalda  da  Roca  as  she  appeared  in  the  act  of 
blowing  up  a  shipload  of  Turks  : 

"  Placidamente ////;///>/<)  la  palla'' 

The  expression  is  rarely  at  the  height  of  the  sentiment 
to  be  expressed.  If  this  can  be  overlooked,  the  reader 
who  does  not  wish  his  emotions  to  run  away  with  him 
may  find  much  to  admire  in  the  languid  grace  of  the 
poems,  generally  descriptive,  didactic  or  idyllic,  which 
form  the  most  important  part  of  Aleardi's  work.     It  is 


ZANELLA 


389 


rather  a  reproach  than-  an  honour  to  his  patriotic  lyrics 
that  their  strong  point  should  be  not  eloquence  but 
description,  which  is  always  excellent. 

The  reputation  of  the  good  priest  and  good  patriot, 
GlACOMO  Zanella  (1820-89),  has,  on  the  contrary,  gone 
on  increasing,  and  with  justice,  for  his  verse  is  usually  at 
the  level  of  his  thought,  and  his  thought,  if  more  fre- 
quently graceful  than  striking,  sometimes  attains  a  com- 
manding elevation,  as  in  his  odes  to  Dante  and  on  the 
opening  of  the    Suez   Canal.      His  Psyche   and  Egoism 
and  Charity  are    clearly  and  exquisitely   cut   as   Greek 
gems.     Zanella's  speciality,  however,  is  his  effort  to  ally 
science  with  poetry,  and  though  he  cannot  always  prevail 
upon    them   to   shake   hands,   one  of  his  lyrics  of   this 
character,  The  Vigil ^  a  meditation  upon  Evolution  from 
a  theologian's  point  of  view,  is  perhaps  his  masterpiece. 
Another  very  striking   poem   is   the   colloquy   between 
Milton  and  Galileo,  in  which  Galileo's  dread  of  the  scep- 
tical tendency  of  the  science  to  which  he  has  imparted 
such  an  impulse  is  represented  as  determining  Milton 
**to  justify  the  ways  of  God  to  man."     Zanella,  a  native 
of  the  Vicenzan  district,  w^as  a  gentle,  tender,  melan- 
choly man,  not  unlike  Cowper,  and  his  reason,  under 
the  stress  of  domestic  affliction,  at  one  time  seemed  in 
danger  of  suffering  the  same  eclipse.     Recovering,  he 
forsook  the  career  of  college  professor  for  a  cottage  near 
Vicenza,  where  : 

"  Dopo  sparsi  al  vento 
Tanti  sogni  super bi  e  tantofoco 
Di  poesia  dagV  anni  inert  I  spcnto^ 
Voluntario  rouiito  in  qiiesfo  loco, 
Ira  pochi  arbor i  e  Jior  vivo  con  ten  to.^"* 

This    retirement^    nevertheless,    produced     some    of 
26 


I^JJ!>a>»^WJ-...^i.^ll,-,,,,^a>8|flirilJ«^«s^iA.^j|filA]ltfc^ 


390 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE 


Zanella's  most  delicate  poetry,  comprised  in  his  dainty 
little  volume  Astichello  ed  altre  Poesie,  not  yet  included 
in  his  works.  One  of  the  most  beautiful  of  his  poems, 
The  Redbreast  {II  Pettirostro),  marvellously  resembles  the 
idylls  of  Coleridge,  with  whose  works  Zanella  betrays 
his  acquaintance.  Charming,  also,  are  the  sonnets  cele- 
brating the  various  aspects  of  the  local  river,  the  little 
Astichello,  such  as  this  upon  the  sympathy  between  man 
and  Nature  in  time  of  drought,  a  ''pathetic  fallacy," 
perhaps,  but  none  the  worse  for  that  : — 

"  Shrunk  to  a  thready  the  dwindling  waters  stray 
Where  Astichello  ^neath  the  poplar  flo7vs 
With  languid  tide  that  scarce  avails  to  sway 
The  moss  that  nigh  the  midmost  channel  grows. 

Sirius  the  while ^  ablaze  with  fiery  ray^ 

Above  the  unsheltered  meadow  throbs  and  glows; 
And  all  the  blithe  fecundity  of  May 

One  withering  waste  of  dismal  yellow  shows. 

The  peasant  groans  despair,  and  shakes  his  head; 
The  friendly  stream^  munificent  no  more^ 
Barred  from  the  brink  it  lately  cverran^ 

Like  rustic  met  with  rustic  to  deplore 

The  common  ill,  wails  feebly  from  its  bed, 
Mingling  its  music  with  the  plaint  of  man.^^ 

Zanella  might  have  applied  to  himself  the  proud 
humility  of  Musset,  Mon  verre  nest  pas  grand,  maisje  bois 
dans  man  verre.  His  modest  strain  was  independent  of 
traditional  or  contemporary  influence.  The  other  poets 
of  the  time  are  more  histonciilly  signiticant  as  repre- 
senting the  decadence  of  the  romantic  school.  A  new 
development  was  urgently  required  to  make  good  its 
exhausted  vitality.  The  problem  was  solved  much  in 
the  same  way  as  that  of  the  renovation  of  the  operatic 


COSSA 


391 


stage,  left  void  by  the  once  brilliant  but  now  moribund 
school  of  Rossini,  save  that  in  that  instance  the  evening 
star  of  the  old  dispensation  was  also  the  morning  star  of 
the  new.  No  such  Janus-Verdi  arose  upon  poetry,  but 
the  man  for  the  occasion  was  found  in  the  principal 
hgure  of  our  next  chapter,  Giosue  Carducci. 

The  drama  of  the  period  has  only  one  eminent  repre- 
sentative, PiETRO  CosSA  (1830-80),  and  his  works,  strictly 
speaking,  fall  somewhat  later.    Cossa,  though  fine  both  in 
versification  and  rhetoric,  is  essentially  more  of  a  play- 
wright than  of  a  poet,  but  half  redeems  his  deficiencies 
by  a  quality  not  too  common  on  the  tragic  stage  of  our 
day,  masculine  strength.     Almost  every  scene  is  power- 
ful, the  action  rarely  halts  or  lingers,  there  is  never  any 
room  for  doubt  as  to   the  author's  intention,   and  the 
language  is  energetic  without  bombast.     Cossa's  short- 
comings are  mainly  in  the  higher  region  of  art.     He  has 
little   creative  power,  and  although   he  is   occasionally 
felicitous    in    the   invention    of    a   minor   character,    he 
rarely  ventures    to    travel    beyond    the    record    in    the 
delineation  of  the  historical  personages  who  form  the 
most  hnportant   portion  of  his  dramatic  flock.      There 
is  no  penetration,  no  subtlety,  nothing  to  manifest  en- 
dowment with  any  insight   beyond   the    ordinary.      As 
conventional   representations,  however,  Cossa's  charac- 
ters   are    brilliant,    and    he    may    even    be    accused    of 
excess  in  the  accumulation  of  historical  traits,  as  though 
he   could    not    bear  to    part   with    an  anecdote.      Nero, 
Messalina,  Cola  di  Rienco,  The  Borgias,  Cleopatra,  Julian 
the  Apostate   are   among   the    most    remarkable    of    his 
numerous   historical    tragedies ;    if    not   great    plays    or 
dramatic   poems,   they  are,  at  all  events,  very  splendid 
historical  masquerades.      There  is   more  originality  in 


^e^tmumMsiM 


j^witfciiaAiitfciantfilaiiii  ifa.»^-.***jwasrijfoufl.. 


392  ITALIAN  LITERATURE 

his  one  comedy,  Plauius  and  his  Age,  a  lively  picture 
of  Roman  society  in  Plautus's  time. 

The  period  immediately  preceding  the  establishment 
of  Italian  unity  brought  forth  many  novels,  mostly  of 
the  IManzonian  school.  The  most  important  of  these 
have  been  already  mentioned.  FRANCESCO  DOMENico 
GUERAZZI  (1804-73),  of  infelicitous  memory  as  a  poli- 
tician, had  sufficient  force  as  an  historical  novehst  to 
deviate  from  the  Manzonian  model,  and  to  obtain  for 
a  while  an  European  reputation  with  his  Battle  of  Bene- 
vento,  Siege  of  Florence,  and  Pasquale  Paoli.  He  was  a 
man  of  powerful  but  unregulated  character,  and  the 
inequality  extends  to  his  writings  ;  his  diction  is  extolled, 
his  style  condemned.  Italian  fiction  had  a  serious  loss 
in  Ippolito  Nievo,  drowned  on  his  return  from  Garibaldi's 
expedition  to  Sicily.  "  Perhaps,"  says  Vernon  Lee,  -  no 
better  picture  could  be  given  of  Italy  in  the  last  years 
of  the  eighteenth  century  than  that  contained  in  Nievo's 
Confessioni  di  un  Ottuagcuarioy 

The  literary  period  which  we  have  been  traversing  in 
the  last  two  chapters  may  be  approximately  described  a- 
that  extending  from  the  fall  of  Napoleon  the  First  (1814) 
to   the  intervention  of  Napoleon   the   Third  in    Italian 
politics  (1859).      It  saw  the  later  works  of  Monti  and 
Foscolo,  all  the  chief  productions  of  Manzoni,  and  every- 
thing of  Leopardi's.     Apart  from  these,  it  produced  no 
great  genius,  but  a  number  of  highly  distinguished  writers 
who  did  honour  to  their  own  literature  without  produc- 
ing any  marked  effect  upon  the  literatures  of  foreign 
nations.      The  main   reason   of  this  circumscription   of 
Italian   influence   was   the  legitimate   preoccupation   of 
Italy  with  her  own  affairs.     The  main  aspiration  of  every 
ItaLan  breast  was  the  expulsion  of  the  foreigner  and  the 


ITALIAN  AND  ENGLISH   LITERATURE     393 

constitution  of  the  national  unity,  whether  as  monarchy, 
federation,  or  republic.  This  common  thought  gave  a 
noble  unity  to  the  authorship  of  the  period,  but  could 
not  materially  affect  contemporary  literatures,  although 
Mazzini's  English  writings,  Mr.  Gladstone's  Neapolitan 
pamphlets,  Sydney  Dobell's  Roman,  Mrs.  Browning's 
Casa  Guidi  Windows  and  Poems  before  Congress,  and 
divers  poems  of  Robert  Browning,  and  Algernon  Swin- 
burne, and  Dante  Rossetti,  show  that  England  was 
not  uninfluenced  by  it.  In  the  next  generation,  Italian 
letters,  though,  except  for  the  poets  Carducci  and 
D'Annunzio,  rather  retrograding  than  advancing  in 
merit,  became  more  influential  by  becoming  more 
cosmopolitan. 


CHAPTER  XXVI 

CONTEMPORARY  ITALIAN   LITERATURE 

The  present  age  of  letters  in  Italy  resembles  its  contem-^ 
porary  literary  epochs  in  the  one  respect  in  which  these 
agree  among  themselves  and  differ  from  most  preceding 
ages  ;  it  is  an  age  of  literary  anarchy.  No  standard  of 
taste  exists  to  which  it  is  deemed  essential  to  conform, 
and  antipathetic  scliools  flourish  comfortably,  if  not 
always  peaceably,  side  by  side.  This  was  the  case 
with  the  Greek  schools  of  philosophy  under  the  Roman 
Empire,  but  in  literature  lias  rarely  happened  before  the 
nineteenth  century.  At  almost  all  former  periods  some 
prevailing  canon  of  taste  has  stamped  the  literary  pro- 
ductions of  the  era  with  its  own  signet,  and  the  most 
celebrated  authors  of  the  day  have  legislated  for  the  rest. 
The  Goethes,  the  Victor  Hugos,  the  Tennysons  of  our 
time,  while  powerfully  affecting  contemporary  thought, 
have  failed  to  thus  impress  their  image  and  super- 
scription on  contemporary  style.  Scepticism  which  at 
former  periods  would  have  horrihed  the  co^evals  of 
Pope  or  Bembo,  is  audaciously  professed  with  regard 
to  the  merits  of  greater  men  ;  and  whereas,  in  former 
ages,  admiration  meant  imitation,  some  of  the  sincerest 
votaries  of  a  Hugo  or  a  Browning  would  be  farthest 
from  attempting  to  reproduce  their  mannerisms.  It  is 
quite  true  that  the  endeavour  is  still  sometimes  made  to 

394 


CONTEMPORARY  TENDENCIES 


395 


erect  individual  tastes  and  distastes  into  articles  of  faith, 
that  we  are  confidently  told  that  such  a  writer  or  such 
a  form  of  art  is  hopelessly  antiquated,  and  that  such 
another  is  accepted  by  the  right-minded.  But  this  dog- 
matism is  invariably  an  expression  of  individual  taste, 
and  has  no  real  substance  and  no  permanence.  The 
change  cannot  but  be  salutary  if,  as  we  believe,  it  is  in 
the  main  an  effect  of  the  expansion  of  the  area  of 
knowledge.  The  class  of  intelligent  readers  is  now 
so  greatly  enlarged  that  the  legislation  of  academies 
and  the  verdict  of  coteries  reach  comparatively  but  a 
little  way ;  readers  think  for  themselves  more  than 
they  did  of  old  ;  and  if  the  public  taste  is  less  disci- 
plined than  formerly,  it  is  in  less  danger  of  being 
biassed  in  one  direction.  It  may  be  added  that  the 
armistice  between  the  classic  and  romantic  schools,  con- 
sequent upon  the  proved  inability  of  each  to  subdue 
the  other,  has  demonstrated  the  impossibility  of  any 
infallible  assthetic  criterion.  Men  disputed  what  this 
criterion  might  be,  and  different  conceptions  of  it  pre- 
vailed in  different  ages,  but  the  existence  of  some  defi- 
nite standard  entitled  to  exact  conformity  was  questioned 
by  none.  Now  it  is  generally  recognised  that  men  are 
born  classicists  or  romanticists,  as  they  have  been  said 
to  be  born  Platonists  or  Aristotelians,  and  that  the  right 
course  for  every  author  is  to  cultivate  his  powers  in 
whatsoever  direction  Nature  has  assigned  to  them,  and 
for  every  reader  to  strive  to  appreciate  excellence  whence- 
soever  it  comes.  The  result  is  life,  spirit,  energy,  but  a 
commotion  as  of  tossing  billows,  which  may  or  may  not 
eventually  settle  down  into  the  calm  of  an  accepted  theory 

of  art. 

We  cannot  speak  in  Italy  more  than  elsewhere  of  any 


n-Ai.^  Ai.  ito--ariis.«ji>.fc.»...  yifagaaaa,>aaMMtt;^jfe..j;A. '  ---^j^  ■'«-  .■i.--*aaiaB|jajnaaK| 


39<5 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE 


great  writer  as  ruling  his  age  and  prescribing  laws  to  his 
contemporaries.  Individual  genius,  however,  is  no  less 
effective  than  of  old  upon  those  constitutionally  in  sym- 
pathy with  it,  and  no  gifted  writer  can  introduce  a 
new  style  without  enlisting  disciples  and  provoking  an- 
tagonists. Such  a  genius  and  such  a  style  appertain  to 
Giosui^:  CxVKDUCCi  (born  1836),  the  one  contemporary 
poet  of  Italy  who,  if  w^e  except  Gabriele  d'Annunzio, 
'^in  shape  and  gesture  proudly  eminent,"  stands  forth 
like  a  tower  from  the  rest,  and  who  has  made  an  abiding 
reputation  as  the  introducer  of  the  new  elements  needed 
to  replace  the  expiring  impulse  of  the  romantic  school. 
Like  many  of  his  compeers,  Carducci  partakes  of  both 
classic  and  romantic  elements  ;  romantic  in  his  revolt 
against  convention,  classic  in  his  worship  of  antique 
form  ;  and  it  is  in  great  measure  this  duality  which 
renders  him  so  important  and  interesting. 

Carducci,  far  from  being  the  literary  dictator  of  his 
age,  is  perhaps  not  less  distasteful  to  the  ultra-realists  for 
whom  he  paved  the  way,  than  to  the  romanticists  whom 
he  overthrew,  yet  is  in  a  very  special  sense  the  repre- 
sentative of  his  age  and  nation.  The  commencement  of 
poetical  activity  synchronised  with  a  new  dispensation 
in  the  world  of  politics.  The  reviving  nation  must  have 
a  new  poet  or  none.  Egypt  was  plainly  unfit  to  sing  the 
songs  of  Sion.  The  submission  of  Manzoni,  the  despair 
of  Leopardi,  had  in  their  respective  ways  well  suited  an 
age  of  slavery  ;  but  the  age  of  liberty  had  now  arrived, 
and  craved  strains  combative,  resonant,  and  joyous. 
The  Pope's  obstinate  clinging  to  the  temporal  power 
also  compelled  the  national  poet  to  be  anti  -  clerical. 
Neither  Carducci's  political  nor  his  religious  views  wanted 
anything  essential  to  the  effectual  fulfilment  of  his  mis- 


CARDUCCI 


397 


sion  :  that  their  vehemence  sometimes  transgressed  the 
limits  of  good  sense  and  good  taste  would  probably  now 
be  acknowledged  by  himself.      It  was  equally  important 
that  the  form  should  correspond  to  the  feeling.  The  new 
spirit  sought  a  new  body.     Carducci  solved  the  problem 
in  the  same  manner  as  Chiabrera  would  have  solved  it 
two  centuries  and  a  half  before,  had  Chiabrera's  genius 
equalled   his   discernment.      He   perceived   that  in   the 
circumstances   of  his   day   a   return   to   classic   models 
would  be  no  retrogression,  but   renovation  for  Italian 
poetry  :    unfortunately  he  had  no  true  insight  into  the 
classical  spirit.     This  Carducci  possessed,  and  there  are 
few  happier  examples  of  the  alliance  of  one  literature 
with  another  than  the  poems,  the  most  important  part 
of  his  work,  in  which  he  has  kept  classical  examples 
steadily  before  him.     The  imitation,  it  must  be  under- 
stood, is  one  of  form  and  not  of  essence  ;  the  themes 
are   but   occasionally  classical,  and   even  when   this   is 
the  case  express  the  feelings  of  a  modern  Italian  spirit. 
Imitate  classical  forms  as  the  poet  may,  he  is  essentially 
the  man  of  the  nineteenth  century  :  his  variety  of  mood 
and  theme  is  great ;  his  orchestra  has  a  place  for  every 
instrument ;  but  in  nine  cases  out  of  ten  the  direction 
to  the  performer  is  con  brio.      By  this  dashing   vigour 
Carducci   has   poured    new   blood    into   the   exhausted 
veins   of    Italian    poetry,  and  administered  an   antidote 
to  her   besetting   maladies  by  the  example  of  a   style 
condensed,   nervous,   and    terse   to   a   fault.      Epic    or 
dramatic  power  he  does  not  claim  :   his  genius  is   en- 
tirely lyrical. 

Carducci's  first  volume  appeared  in  1857,  and  the 
events  of  the  following  years  called  forth  a  number 
of  occasional  poems,  clearly  indicating  the  representa- 


398 


ITALIAN   LITERATURE 


tive   poet   of  the  people  and  the  time.      In    1865,  the 
vigorous  "Hymn  to  Satan"  provoked  the   controversy 
which    the    poet   had   no   doubt  designed.      His  Satan, 
it  hardly  need  be  said,  is  not  the  monarch  of  the  fallen 
seraphim,    but   the    spirit    of   revolt    against    social  and 
ecclesiastical  tyranny,  more  of  a  Luther  than  a  Lucifer. 
Levin  Gravia  {1^67)  greatly  extended  the  poet's  reputa- 
tion.    Odi  Barbare  (1877)  excited  a  literary  controversy 
almost  as  virulent  as  the   theological.     The   splendour 
of   the  diction  was  beyond  question,  but  what  was  to 
be  said  to  the  novel  or  exotic  forms  in  which  the  poet 
had   thought   lit   to  clothe   it?    To   us,  the  naturalisa- 
tion  of   the   Alcaic  and  Sapphic  metres  appears   most 
successful,  although  in  the  former  the  writer  has  per- 
mitted    himself    some     deviation    from    the    Horatian 
model,  and  the    form  is  perhaps  too  deeply  impressed 
with    his     own     personality    to    become    frequent     in 
Italian  literature.      Most  of  the  other  forms,  including 
the   hexameters    and    pentameters,   seem  to    us    either 
too    stiff    or    too    intricate    to    be    quite    satisfactorily 
manipulated  even  by  Carducci  himself ;  but  the  study 
of  them  must  be  a  valuable  training  for   practitioners 
in  more  facile  metres.     If  the  form  be  sometimes  too 
elaborate,  there  can  be  no  dispute  as  to  the  weight  and 
massive   majesty   of   the   sense.      Carducci   has    solved 
the  problem  which  baffled   the  Renaissance,  of  linking 
strength   of    thought   to   artifice   of    form.      The   Rime 
Niwve  brought  him  new  laurels,  and  his  poetical  career 
has  paused  for  the  present  with  a  noble  ode  on  the  ter- 
centenary of  Tasso  in   1895.     The  jubilee  of  his  con- 
nection with  the  University  of  Bologna  was  celebrated 
by  a  great  demonstration  in   1896,  and,  reconciled  with 
the  monarcliy  which  he  once  opposed,  he   enjoys  the 


CARDUCCI 


399 


honour  of  a  Senator  of  the  Kingdom.  A  Liberal  but 
a  Royalist,  a  freethinker  but  a  theist,  he  is  happily 
placed  to  exert  a  reconciling  and  moderating  influence 
alike  in  the  political  and  the  intellectual  sphere. 

The  difficulties  of  translating  Carducci's  more  charac- 
teristic poems  are  almost  insuperable.  He  is  not  in  the 
least  obscure,  but  his  noble  and  austere  form  is  indis- 
solubly  wedded  to  the  sense,  and  in  reproduction  his 
bronze  too  often  becomes  plaster.  Many  versions,  more- 
over, would  be  required  to  render  justice  to  the  various 
aspects  of  his  many-sided  genius— his  love  of  country,  his 
passion  for  beautiful  form,  his  Latin  and  Hellenic  enthu- 
siasm, his  photographic  intensity  of  descriptive  touch, 
his  sympathy  for  honest  labour  and  uncomplaining 
poverty,  his  capacity  for  caressing  affection  and  scathing 
indignation.  The  following  poem  powerfully  exhibits 
his  intense  devotion  to  the  past,  and  faith  in  the  future 
of  his  Italy.  The  subject  is  the  statue  of  Victory  in 
the  Temple  of  Vespasian  at  Brescia ;  but  to  appre- 
ciate the  full  force  of  the  poem,  it  must  be  known  that 
the  statue  was  a  recent  discovery  of  happiest  augury 
(1826),  and  that  Brescia  had  been  the  scene  of  an  heroic 
defence  and  a  cruel  sack  in  the  uprising  against, the 
Austrians  in  1848  : 

"  Hast  thou,  high  Virgin,  "^^^^S^  ^f  's<^(^ii  augury 
Waved  der  the  crouching,  targeted  phalanxes. 
With  knee-propt  shield  and  spear  protended^ 
Bidi?tg  the  shock  of  the  hostile  onset? 


Or  hast  thou,  soari?ig  in  front  of  the  eagles, 
Led  surging  S7i>arms  of  Marsian  soldiery. 
With  blaze  of  fulgent  light  the  neighing 
Parthian  steed  and  his  lord  appalling  f 


400  ITALIAN  LITERATURE 

Thy  pinions  folded,  thy  stern  foot  haughtily 
Pressing  the  casque  offoeman  unhelmeted;— 
Whose  fair  renown  for  feat  triumphant 
Art  on  the  orb  of  thy  shield  inscribing  f 

An  archon's  name,  who  boldly  in  face  of  Wrong 
The  freeman's  law  upheld  and  immunity  f 

A  consul's,  fir  and  wide  the  Latin 

Limit  and  glory  and  awe  enlarging? 

Thee  throned  on  Alpine  pinnacle  loftily, 
Radiant  'mid  tempest,  heralding  might  /  hear. 
Kings  and  peoples,  here  stands  Italy, 
Weaponed  to  strike  for  her  soil  and  honour. 

Lydia,  the  while,  a  garland  of  flowerets, 

By  sad  October  strewn  o'er  the  wreck  of  Rome, 

To  deck  thee  braids,  and  gently  bending, 

Questioneth,  as  at  thy  foot  she  lays  it : 

*  What  thoughts,  what  visions.  Victory,  came  to  thee^ 
Years  on  years  in  the  humid  imprisonment 

Of  earth  immured?  the  German  horses 
Heardest  thou  stamp  der  thy  brow  Hellenic?' 

^  I  heard ^  she  answers,  flashing  ami  fulminant, 

*  LI  card  ami  cmiured,  for  glory  of  Greece  am  I, 

And  strength  of  Rome,  in  bronze  immortal 
Sped  without  jlaw  through  the  fleeting  ages. 

*  The  ages  passed  like  the  twelve  birds  ominous. 
Descried  by  gaze  of  Romulus  anciently  : 

They  passed,  I  rose  :  thy  Gods,  proclaiming, 
Italy,  see  !  and  thy  buried  heroes, 

'  Proud  of  her  fortune,  Brescia  enshrined  me, 
Brescia  the  stalwart,  Brescia  the  iron-girt, 
Italians  lioness,  her  vesture 
Dyed  in  the  blood  of  her  land's  invaders.' " 

A  large  proportion  of  Carducci's  lyrics  flow  with  more 
of  liquid  ease  in  more  familiar  metres,  better  adapted  for 


CARDUCCI 


401 


popularity.  This  is  especially  the  case  with  his  impas- 
sioned addresses  to  the  dead  or  to  contemporaries  who 
have  won  his  admiration,  and  the  poems  which  depict 
ordinary  life,  such  as  "A  Dream  in  Summer,"  *^ On  a 
Saint  Peter's  Eve,"  and  "The  Mother,"  whose  apparently 
loose  but  really  well-knit  texture  is  admirably  reproduced 
by  his  American  translator  Mr.  Sewall,  and  which  are 
such  pieces  as  Walt  Whitman  might  have  written  if  he 
had  been  a  poet  in  virtue  of  his  art  as  well  as  of  his 
nature.  Perhaps  none  of  the  shorter  pieces  is  more 
expressive  of  his  profound  humanity  than  his  apotheosis 
of  patient  toil  under  the  figure  of  "The  Ox,"  ably  ren- 
dered by  Mr.  Sewall,  a  poem  Egyptian  in  its  grave 
massiveness  and  tranquil  repose  : 

"  /  love  t/we,  pious  Ox;  a  ge?ttle  feeling 

Of  vigour  and  of  peace  thou  giv'st  my  heart. 
How  solemn,  like  a  monument,  thou  art ! 

Over  wide  fertile  fields  thy  calm  gaze  stealing! 

Unto  the  yoke  with  grave  contentment  kneeling. 

To  mans  quick  work  thou  dost  thy  strength  impart: 
He  shouts  and  goads,  and,  answering  thy  smart. 

Thou  turn'st  on  him  thy  patient  eyes  appealing. 

From  thy  broad  nostrils,  black  and  wet,  arise 

Thy  breatJis  soft  fumes;  and  on  the  still  air  swells 
Like  happy  hymn,  thy  lowing  s  mellow  strain. 

In  the  grave  sweetness  of  thy  tranquil  eyes 
Of  emerald,  broad  and  still  reflected,  dwells 
All  the  divine  green  silence  of  the  plain." 

Carducci  has  rendered  his  country  much  service  as  a 

"•erary  critic,  especially  of  the  Renaissance,  and  of  the 

Isorgimento  of  the  eighteenth  and  nineteenth  centuries. 

'e  is  not  subtle  or  profound,  but  puts  forth  unanswer- 

bly    propositions   dictated   by   the    soundest  common- 

'jnse.     There  is  something  Teutonic  as  well  as  Italian 


402 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE 


in  his  composition,  and  he  recalls  no  precursor  so  much 
as  the  German  poet  Platen,  an  equal  master  of  form ;  but 
Platen,  though  a  real  patriot,  is  more  at  home  with  any 
nation  than  his  own.  It  is  a  chief  glory  of  Carducci  to 
have  united  an  intensely  patriotic  spirit  to  a  compre- 
hensive cosmopolitanism.  Though  ranging  far  and  wide 
to  enrich  the  domestic  literature  wnth  new  metrical  forms, 
he  loves  those  in  which  the  Itahan  genius  has  embodied 
itself  from  days  of  old,  and  is  always  ready  to  defend 
them  against  degenerate  countrymen,  no  less  than 
against  unappreciative  foreigners.  Like  Wordsworth, 
he  has  simultaneously  vindicated  and  illustrated  the 
sonnet : 

*'  Brief  strain  with  much  in  little  rife ;  whose  tone^ 
As  worlds  untrodden  rose  upon  his  thoui^hty 
Dante  touched  lightly ;  that  Petrarca  sought^ 

Flower  among  flowers  by  gliding  waters  grown; 

That  from  trump  epical  of  Tasso  blown 
Pealed  through  his  prison  ;  that  wert  gravely  fraught 
With  voice  austere  by  him  who  marble  fought 

To  free  the  spirit  he  divined  in  stone : — 

To  jEschylus  new-born  by  AvotHs  shore 

Thou  camest  Harbinger  of  Art,  to  be 
A  hidden  cell  for  hidden  sorroit/s  store ; 

On  thee  smiled  Milton  and  Camoens  ;  thee, 
His  rout  of  lines  unleashing  with  a  roar, 

Bavius  blasphemes ;  the  dearer  thence  to  me" 

Carducci's  example  could  not  but  create  a  school  of 
poets,  many  of  great  merit,  but  most  of  whom  stand  to 
him  more  or  less  in  the  relation  of  disciples  to  a  master. 
The  chief  exception  is  tlie  only  one  who  can  claim, 
like  Timotheus,  to  "  divide  the  crown,"  Gabriele 
d'Axnuxzio. 

D'Annunzio  (born  1S63)  ib  a  second  Marini,  endowed 


D'ANNUNZIO 


403 


with  an  even  more  brilliant  genius,  and  better  armed 
against   besetting   faults.     It   is   terrible   to    think   what 
synchronism  w^ith  Marini  might  have  made  of  him,  but 
^  it   has   been  his  good  fortune  to  have  had  Carducci's 
;  example  before  his  eyes,  and  his  merit  to  have  profited 
by  it.     At  the  same  time  his  genius  is  so  distinct  from 
Carducci's  as  to  vindicate  for  him  an  independent  posi- 
tion.    To  employ  Coventry  Patmore's  happy  application 
of  a  passage  in  Zephaniah  to  the  poetic  art,  D'Annunzio 
rather  represents  "  Beauty,"  and  Carducci  ''  Bands  ";  the 
note  of  the  one   is   restraint,  and  that  of  the  other  is 
exuberance.     D'Annunzio's  verse  is  not  cast  in  bronze 
like  Carducci's,  nor  has  he   his  rival's  splendid  virility 
or  his  devotion  to  ideal  interests  ;  his  affluence  is  never- 
theless so  well  restrained  by  a  natural  instinct  for  form 
that  it  never,  as  with  Marini,  becomes  riotous  extrava- 
gance.     Some   of   the   metrical   forms,   indeed,   which, 
influenced  as  may  be  surmised  by  Mr.  Swinburne,  he 
has  endeavoured  to  introduce,  seem  ill  adapted  to  the 
genius  of  the  Italian  language,  though  they  would  prob- 
ably  succeed   well   in   English.      But    nothing   can    be 
more  satisfactory  than  the  form  of  his  sonnets   or   of 
his  ballad-romances,  and  he  has  enriched  Italian  poetry 
with   one   new  form  of  great  beauty,  the  rhna  nana,  a 
happy    compromise    between    the    terse    purity   of    the 
national  octave  and  the  rich  harmony,  like  the  chiming 
of  many  waters,  of  the  English  Spenserian  stanza,  which 
no    foreign  literature    has  yet  succeeded   in  acclimatis- 
ing.    It  is    also  to   his  honour  that,  while  no  writer  is 
more    partial    to    the   employment    of    unusual   words, 
commonly  derived  from  science  or  natural  history,  the 
effect    is    that    of    brilliant    mosaic   without    a    mosaic's 
rigidity,  but  soft  and  liquid  as  a  glowing  canvas. 


404 


ITALIAN   LITERATURE 


In  nriny  respects  D'Annunzio  presents  a  strong  affinity 
to  Keats  ;   but  to  the  innocent  sensuousness  which  re- 
joices in  the  reproduction  of  sumptuous  beauty,  he  adds 
that  which  purposely  ministers  to  vohiptuousness.     This 
mij^ht  be  forgiven  as  the  failing  of  a  youthful  and  ardent 
poet,  and  becomes,  indeed,  much  less  obtrusive  in  his  later 
poetical  writings.    The  misfortune  is  that  nothing  seems 
to  be  taking  its  place.     Had  years  brought  D'Annunzio 
"the  philosophic  mind,"  had  his  third  volume  compared 
with  its  predecessors  as  Locksley  Hall  and  hi  Memoriam 
compare  with  the  Lotus  Eaters,  he  would  be  at  the  head, 
not  merely  of  Italian,  but  of  European  poets.     His  most 
recent    productions,   while    indicating,   as   must   almost 
inevitably  be  the  case,  an  impoverishment  of  the  merely 
sensuous   opulence   of    his   youth,    manifest   but   slight 
advance  in   powder  of  thought,  in  dignity  of   utterance, 
in  human  or  national  sympathies,  in  anything  that  dis- 
criminates the  noon  of  poetical  power  from  its  morning. 
The  Canto  Novo  (1881)  and  the  Intermezzo  (1883)  were 
a  splendid  dawn  ;  and  Ulsotteo  (1885)  and  La  Chimera 
(1888J  revealed  further  development,  not  indeed  in  power 
of  thought,  but  in  objectivity  and  in  mastery  of  form. 
Much  of  all  these  volumes  is  mere  voluptuous  dreaming, 
but  the  pictures  of  nature  are  marvellously  vivid  ;  such 
pieces  as  the  little  unrhymed  lyric  of  twelve  lines,  OfaJce 
di  luna  calante,  reveal  the  natural  magic  which  is  perhaps 
the  rarest  endowment  of  genius  ;  and  the  melody  is  such 
as  is  only  granted  to  a  true  poet.     In  the  Poema  Para- 
disiaco,  the  joy  of  life  is  evidently  on  the  wane,  and, 
except  in  a  few  pieces  of  exquisite  pathos,  such  as  Conso- 
lazione,  seems  in  danger  of  being  replaced,  not  by  a  nobler 
and  more  serious  theory  of  lite,  but  by  the  worst  kind 
of    pessimism,    that   born    of   mere   satiety.     The   most 


D'ANNUNZIO 


405 


recent  poems,  the  Odi  N avail  (1893),  though  patriotic 
in  theme,  appear  tame  and  artificial  in  comparison  with 
earlier  work.  The  epilogue  to  the  Poema  Paradisiaco, 
nevertheless,  argues  progress  in  the  right  direction,  and 
leaves  room  to  hope  that  L^'Annunzio  may  yet  take  rank 
not  merely  with  poets  eminent  for  melody,  fancy,  and 
imagination,  but  with  those  who  have  counted  among 
the  shaping  forces  of  their  time. 

The   general    impression    of    D'Annunzio's   poetry   is 
one   of   dazzling   splendour   and    intoxicating   perfume. 
The  poet  seems  determined  to  leave  no  sense  ungrati- 
hed,  and  not  to  omit  a  hue,  an  odour,  or  a  cadence  that 
can   by  any  possibility  be  pressed   into  his  service.     It 
says  much   for  the  genuineness  of  his  poetical  faculty 
that  he  should  actually  be  able  to  perform  this  without 
falling  into  extravagance  ;  but  although  his  lavish  luxury 
of  phrase  and  description   is  kept  within  the  limits  of 
taste,  the  too  uniform  splendour   satiates   and  fatigues. 
Mr.  Greene's  translations  in  his   Italian   Lyrists  convey 
a  very  good  notion  of  D'Annunzio's  most  usual  manner. 
The  following  sonnet  may  serve  as  a  specimen  :— 

"  Beneath  the  white  full-moon  the  murmuring  seas 
Send  songs  of  love  across  the  pine-tree  glade  ; 
The  moontight  filtering  through  the  dome-topped  trees 

Fills  with  weird  light  tJie  vast  and  secret  shade; 
Afresh  salt  perfume  on  the  lily  rian  breeze 

From  sea-weeds  on  the  rock  is  hither  swayed^ 
While  my  sad  hearty  worn  out  and  ill  at  ease, 
A  wild  poetic  longing  doth  invade. 

But  no7u  more  joyous  still  the  love-songs  flow 

O'er  7vaves  of  silver  sea;  from  pine  to  pine 
A  sweet  name  echoes  in  the  winds  that  blow; 

And,  hovering  through  yon  spacrs  di  a  man  tine, 
A  phantom  fair  with  silent  flight  and  slow. 

Smiles  on  me  from  its  great-orbed  eyes  divine.*' 

27 


4o6 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE 


At  the  same  time  D'Annunzio  has  another  style,  prin- 
cipally exhibited  in  his  minor  lyrics  and  his  ballad 
romances,  where  simple  but  perfect  melody  is  mated  with 
hearty  vigour.  The  contrast  between  Tennyson's  Palace 
of  Art  and  his  Edicard  Gray  is  hardly  greater  than  that 
between  the  brilliant  poetical  landscape  just  quoted,  and 
this  joyous  aiibade : — 

"  While  yet  the  veil  of  misty  dew 
Conceals  the  mornincr  Jlushy 
(How  light  of  foot  the  foxes'  crew 
Are  scampering  in  the  bush  I) 

On  damask  bed  my  Clara  spends 

hi  drcaffis  the  idle  hours  : 
(Wann  the  wet  meadow's  breath  ascends, 

And  herbs  are  sweet  as  flowers.) 

Lift,  lovely  lady  all  amort^ 

The  glory  of  your  head. 
(The  hounds  are  yelling  in  the  court 

Enough  to  wake  the  dead.) 

Hearst  not  the  note  of  merry  horn 

That  calls  thee  to  the  chase  ? 
(In  glades  of  ancient  oak  and  thorn 

The  deer  hath  left  his  trace.) 

With  manly  vesture,  trim  and  tight^ 

Those  budding  breasts  be  bound; 
(I  hear  thy  jennet  neigh  delight, 

And  paw  the  paven  ground.) 

Soho  /  7ny  beauty  1  down  the  stairs 

At  last?     Aha/  Huzza! 
(Red  morning  o'er  the  mountain  flares.) 

To  saddle  I  and  away  .' 


I ;; 


It  is  manifest  that  although  the  Carduccisand  D'Annun* 
zios  of  the  present  day  may  not  rank  higher  as  poets  than 


CONTEMPORARY  POETRY 


407 


the  Montis  and  Leopardis  of  the  past,  they  have  done 
far  more  to  lit  the  Italian  lyre  with  new  strings,  and  have 
opened  up  paths  of  progress  formerly  undreamed  of. 
Many  of  the  novel  and  exotic  forms  they  have  introduced 
will  richly  repay  cultivation,  but  the  problem  will  be  to 
employ  the  technique  acquired  by  their  practice  to  the 
embellishment  and  elevation  of  forms  more  adapted  for 
general  use.  .This  the  great  master  of  modern  Italian 
poetry  has  seen,  and,  magnificently  as  he  has  handled 
the  more  elaborate  harmonies,  it  is  the  simple,  popular 
song  that  he  invokes  after  all,  while  incomparably  exem- 
plifying it : 

"  Cura  c  onor  de'  padri  mici, 
Tu  mi  sei 

Come  lor  sacra  e  diletta. 
Ave,  0  rima  :  e  dammi  unfiore 
Per  Pamore, 
E  per  Podio  una  saetta" 

Apart  from  these  two  chief  names  Italy  possesses  at 
present  a  number  of  excellent  lyrical  poets.     The  best 
known  is  perhaps  Olindo  Guerrini,  whose  first  poems, 
Posthunuiy  supposed   to   be   edited  from  the    papers   of 
an  imaginary  Lorenzo  Stecchetti,  caused  a  great  sensa- 
tion, not  so  much  by  their  unquestionable  talent  as  by 
their  audacious  immorality.     Of  late  years  Guerrini  has 
produced  a  number  of  poems  on  the  political  circum- 
stances   of    the    country,    many    of    which    are    perfect 
masterpieces  of  refined  form  and  energetic  expression. 
As  much  may  be  said  for  the  political  verses  of  the  Parlia- 
mentary orator  Felice  Cavallotti.     The  poet  of  the  social 
revolution  is  Mario  Rapisardi,  a  Sicilian,  known  also  as 
the  literary  antagonist  of  Carducci ;    while  the    sorrows 
of  the  poor   are  pathetically  expressed  by  a  lady,  Ada 


4o8 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE 


Negri.  Alessandro  Arnaboldi,  lately  deceased,  possessed 
an  eminent  faculty  for  description  and  excelled  in  grave 
and  dignified  lyric,  not  unlike  Matthew  Arnold  ;  while 
Italy  has  her  James  Thomson  in  the  gloomy  and 
powerful  Arturo  Graf.  Antonio  Fogazzaro,  on  the  other 
hand,  is  the  poet  of  hope  and  faith.  Enrico  Panzacchi, 
less  individual  than  most  of  these,  surpasses  them  all 
in  grace  and  variety  ;  Edmondo  de  Amicis,  celebrated 
as  a  traveller,  has  the  gift  of  brilliant  description  ;  Luigi 
Capuana  has  emulated  Carducci's  metrical  experiments ; 
and  excellent  poetry  has  been  produced  by  Giovanni  Mar- 
radi,  Giuseppe  Pascoli  and  Alfredo  Baccelli.  Translated 
specimens  of  these  ana  other  poets,  with  biographical  and 
bibliographical  particulars,  will  be  found  in  Mr.  G.  A. 
Greene's  Italian  Lyrists  of  To-Day,  On  the  whole,  the 
present  condition  of  Italian  poetry  is  one  of  abundant 
vitality,  but  of  deficient  concentration  either  in  great  men 
or  great  poems.  The  serious  drama  is  best  represented 
by  Cavallotti's  tragedies  and  the  New  Testament  trilogy 
of  Giuseppe  Bovio,  and  the  humorous  by  the  comedies 
of  Roberto  Bracco  and  Giacinto  Gallina. 

The  novel  is  at  present  as  vigorously  cultivated  in  Italy 
as  in  any  civilised  nation,  and  the  talent  it  attracts  cannot 
be  altogether  devoid  of  results.  No  talent,  however, 
succeeds  in  permanently  naturalising  forms  of  literature 
uncongenial  to  the  national  mind,  and  it  remains  to  be 
seen  whether  this  is  or  is  not  the  case  with  the  novel  in 
Italy.  The  novelette  arose  spontaneously,  and  was  main- 
tained without  difficulty  ;  but  with  every  encouragement 
from  the  example  of  other  nations,  Italy  failed  to  accli- 
matise either  romantic  liction  or  the  novel  of  manners, 
until  far  entered  into  the  nineteenth  century.  The  infer- 
ence that  lengthy  story-telling  must  be  alien  to  the  genius 


D'ANNUNZIO'S  NOVELS 


409 


of  the  people  is  confirmed  by  the  general  inferiority  of 
modern  Italian  novelists.  One  or  two,  such  as  Matilda 
Serao,  Salvatore  Farini,  and  Giulio  Barrili,  have  acquired 
a  reputation  beyond  the  limits  of  their  own  country.  One 
or  two  others,  such  as  Antonio  Fogazzaro,  the  leader  of 
a  reaction  towards  a  spiritualistic  conception  of  things ; 
Carlo  Placci,  the  very  promising  author  of  Un  Fiirto ; 
and  Luciano  Zuccoli,  author  of  Roberta^  have  shown 
the  ability  to  impress  themselves  upon  the  national 
literature. 

Only  two,  however,  seem  to  stand  forth  very  decidedly 
as  masters  of  fiction.  One  of  them  is  Gabriele  d'An- 
nunzio,  already  treated  as  a  poet.  D'Annunzio's  novels 
have  made  more  noise  than  his  poems,  being  from 
one  point  of  view  much  more,  from  another  much  less, 
suited  for  general  perusal.  The  scandal  which  has  grown 
up  about  them  has  diverted  attention  from  th^ir  real 
merits  of  fine  style  and  conscientious  workmanship.  As 
an  artist,  D'Annunzio  is  almost  as  admirable  in  prose  as  in 
verse  ;  and  if  with  his  descriptive  he  combined  the  crea- 
tive gift,  all  his  immoralities  would  not  debar  him  from 
permanent  renown.  Unfortunately,  he  is  like  most 
French  and  Italian  novelists,  monotonously  restricted 
to  the  portrayal  of  a  single  passion,  and  his  splendid 
scenery  is  the  background  for  trivial  characters.  He 
reminds  us  of  the  demon  in  Victor  Hugo's  poem,  who 
consumes  the  strength  of  lions  and  the  wisdom  of  ele- 
phants in  fashioning  a  locust.  This  is  the  besetting  sin 
of  the  novelists  of  France  and  Italy  :  with  a  few  brilliant 
exceptions  on  both  sides,  the  English  novel  lives  by  char- 
acter, the  French  by  situation.  D'Annunzio's  novels  are 
nevertheless  important  literary  events,  and  cannot  be 
omitted  from  any  survey  of  modern  European  literature. 


410 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE 


They  have  already  gained  him  renown  and  circulation  in 
France  and  the  United  States.  The  most  celebrated  are 
//  Piacere,  II  Trionfo  della  Morte,  La  Vergine  delle  Rocce^ 
the  last  of  which  is  exempt  from  most  of  the  objections 
justly  urged  against  the  others. 

Giovanni  Verga  (b.  1840)  rivals  the  European  reputa- 
tion of  D'Annunzio,  and  is,  like  him,  the  head  of  a  realistic 
school ;  but  his  realism  is  of  quite  another  sort,  owing 
nothing  to  Zola  or  Maupassant.  He  is  the  most  eminent 
European  representative  of  the  local  novel,  dealing  with 
the  manners,  humours,  and  peculiar  circumstances  of 
some  special  locality.  The  vogue  of  this  style  was  perhaps 
originally  due  to  George  Sand's  idyllic  pictures  of  Berri. 
Verga  has  found  a  yet  more  interesting  corner  of  the  world 
to  delineate.  A  Sicilian,  though  residing  at  Milan,  he  has 
made  his  native  island  the  scene  of  his  fiction.  Centuries 
of  misfiovernment  have  unhappily  accumulated  stores  of 
tragic  material  in  the  people's  misery  and  oppression,  and 
the  ferocity  and  vindictiveness  these  have  engendered. 
Verga  depicts  these  circumstances  with  the  fidelity  of  a 
dispassionate  observer  and  the  skill  of  an  artist.  His 
books  not  only  attract  in  their  own  day,  but  will  be 
treasured  in  the  future  among  the  most  valuable  docu- 
ments for  the  social  history  of  Sicily. 

Any  one  of  even  the  minor  poets  whom  we  have 
enumerated  has  a  chance  of  reaching  posterity,  for 
their  work  is  at  all  events  individual,  and  expressive 
of  the  personality  of  the  author.  If  this  is  sufficiently 
interesting,  the  work  may  live,  though  it  be  far  from 
inaugurating  a  new  literary  era  like  Carducci's.  It  is 
otherwise  with  the  contemporary  prose  literature  of 
Italy.  A  history,  a  biography,  philology  like  Ascoli's 
or  D'Ancona's,  a  work  on  social  science  like  Sella's  or 


LIVING  PROSE  WRITERS 


411 


Morselli's  may  possess  great  value  as  the  work  of  an 
expert,  even  though  devoid  of  individuality  ;  but  in  this 
case  it  must  sooner  or  later  lapse  into  the  category  of 
books  of  reference.  Such  appears  to  be  the  case  with 
most  of  the  excellent  work  now  being  done  in  Italy  in 
these  and  other  departments  :  the  statue  is  carved,  but 
no  name  is  inscribed  upon  the  pedestal,  for  the  sculpture 
is  the  work  of  a  craftsman,  not  of  an  artist.  Exceptions 
may  be  made  in  favour  of  a  few  writers  recently  deceased 
— Ruggiero  Bonghi,  translator  of  Plato  and  historian  of 
Rome,  one  of  the  soundest  heads  in  Italy  ;  Giuseppe 
Chiarini,  champion  of  Carducci ;  Enrico  Nencioni,  lately 
lost  to  his  country,  a  high  authority  upon  English  litera- 
ture ;  Angelo  de  Gubernatis,  a  brilliant  and  almost  too 
versatile  critic  and  philologist ;  and  Giuseppe  Guerzoni, 
raised  above  himself  by  his  theme  when  he  wrote  the  life 
of  Garibaldi.  Among  living  men,  two  at  least  have  won 
an  abiding  reputation  as  writers,  apart  from  the  utilitarian 
worth  of  their  work — Pascale  Villari,  biographer  of  Savo- 
narola and  Machiavelli,  and  writer  on  the  social  condi- 
tions of  the  South ;  and  Domenico  Comparetti,  author  of 
Virgilio  nel  Medio  Evo.  In  general,  however,  the  chief 
distinction  of  contemporary  writers  on  serious  subjects 
seems  to  be  their  general  diligence  and  good  sense. 
Admirable  writers  have  gained  European  renown  for 
themselves,  and  exalted  the  fame  of  their  country  by  the 
substantial  merit  of  works  making  no  especial  pretension 
to  literary  distinction.  Thus  Ascoli  stands  high  in  gene- 
ral philology;  D'Ancona,  Tigri,  and  Rubieri  in  literary 
history;  Lanciani  and  Rossi  in  archaeology;  Nitti  in 
historical  research;  Pasolini  and  Solerti  in  biography; 
Cremona  in  mathematics;  Lombroso  and  Ferrero  in 
psychology ;  and  Cossa  in  political  economy. 


412 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE 


These  form  a  galaxy  indeed,  but  belong  rather  to 
learning  and  science  than  to  literature.  This  temporary 
languor  of  pure  literature  may  perhaps  be  accounted  for 
wiien  it  is  considered  that  one  main  factor  of  inspiration 
has  been  removed  bv  the  contentment  of  the  national 
aspirations.  The  subjection  and  oppression  of  the 
country,  with  all  their  evils,  at  all  events  afforded  an 
intense  stimulus  to  literary  genius.  Every  Italian  heart 
was  possessed  by  the  emotions  most  conducive  to  im- 
passioned composition  ;  and  patriotic  sentiment,  even 
when  not  expressed  in  words,  imbued  the  whole  of 
literature.  The  tension  removed,  it  was  perhaps  in- 
evitable that  overstrained  feelings  should  decline  to 
a  lower  level,  which  may  be  suddenly  elevated  by 
the  occurrence  of  some  great  national  crisis,  or  the 
appearance  of  some  genius  gifted,  like  Mazzini  and 
Carducci,  with  an  especial  power  of  influencing  the 
young.  What  Italian  letters  seem  to  w^ant  above  all 
things  is  men,  other  than  poets  and  novelists,  capable 
of  impressing  their  own  individuality  on  what  they 
write,  and  such  men  are  most  readily  formed  either 
by  the  agitation  of  stirring  times,  or  by  the  contagious 
enthusiasm  caught  from  a  great  teacher. 

The  opinions  of  many  eminent  living  men  of  letters 
on  the  future  of  their  country's  literature  have  been  col- 
lected by  Signor  Ugo  Ojetti  in  his  Alia  scoperta  dei Letterati 
(1895).  They  are  not  in  general  of  a  very  encouraging 
character,  but  their  weight  is  considerably  impaired  by 
their  almost  complete  restriction  to  a  single  branch  of 
literature,  and  that  one  whose  preponderance  is  by  no 
means  to  be  desired.  Almost  all  the  authors  interviewed 
by  Signor  Ojetti  are  novelists,  and,  so  far  as  appears  from 
his  leports,  would  appear  utterly  unconscious  of  the 


ITALIAN  LITERATI 


413 


existence  of  any  class  of  literature  but  fiction,  poetry,  and 
the  drama.     They  seem  to  regard  literature  and  \elles 
Icttres  as  convertible  terms,  and  take  no  notice  of  the 
wider  and  more  important  domains  of  history,  biography, 
philosophy,  moral  and  economic  science,  which  may  be 
and  often  have  been  in  the  most  flourishing  condition 
while  belles  lettres  languish.     It  is,  indeed,  much  to  be 
wished  that  more  of   the   literary  talent  of   Italy  were 
directed  to  solid  and  permanent  work,  and  less  to  fiction, 
which  must  be  ephemeral  in  proportion  to  the  very  fidelity 
with  which  it  fulfils  its  ordinary  task  of  depicting  the 
manners  of  the  day.     Work  like  Comparetti's   Virgilio 
net  Medio  Evo,  for  example,  confers  higher  distinction  on 
the  national  literature  than  any  number  of  novels,  unless 
when  creations  of  genius  of  a  high  order. 

Such  genius,  when  exercised  in  fiction  or  in  poetry, 
does   not  depend  for  its  manifestation    upon   the   state 
of   the   book   market;    the   really   gifted   author   obeys 
an  impulse  from  within.     "Genius  does  what  it  must, 
and  talent  does  what  it  can."     If  modern  Italians  have 
it  in  them  to  produce  great   books,  they  will   not   be 
prevented   by  such  of   the  obstacles   stated   by   Signor 
Ojetti's  confabulators   as   may   be    fairly   resolved    into 
one,    the    insufficient    remuneration    of    literary    work. 
It   is   just   to   acknowledge,    however,   the   existence   of 
impediments  of  another  kind.     From  the  earliest  period 
of   letters    Italy  has  suffered  from  the  variance  of  the 
written  and  the  spoken  language.     The  refinements  of 
cultivated  circles   at    Rome  were   not   accepted   in  the 
provinces  :  there  was  a  Latin  of  books  and  a  Latin  of 
ordinary  life.     In  process  of  time  the  former  became  the 
exclusive  speech  of  the  learned,  while  the  language  of 
the  vulgar  gave  birth  to  a  number  of  dialects,  out  of 


414 


ITALIAN   LITERATURE 


which,  when  a  vernacular  literature  came  to  exist,  the 
Tuscan  was  selected  as  the  most  appropriate  for  written 
speech.  Hence  there  has  always  been  something  arti- 
ficial in  Italian  literary  lani^uai^e.  IVIany  of  the  most 
gifted  authors  who  happened  to  be  bgrn  out  of  Tuscany 
never  attained  to  write  it  with  perfect  correctness ;  and 
the  jealous  care  taken  to  ensure  its  purity  tended  to  limit 
its  flexibihty  and  compass.  It  thus  became  hardly 
adequate  to  deal  with  the  mass  of  neologism  abso- 
lutely forced  upon  it  by  the  development  of  modern 
civilisation. 

"The  difficulty,"  says  Symonds,  "under  which  a 
mother-tongue,  artificially  and  critically  fashioned  like 
Italian,  sutlers  when  it  copes  with  ordinary  affairs  of 
modern  life,  is  illustrated  by  the  formation  of  feeble 
vocables,  and  by  newspaper  jargon,"  of  which  he  gives 
a  horrible  instance.  The  same  critic  wrote  in  1877: 
"Italian  has  undergone  no  process  of  transformation 
and  regeneration  according  to  the  laws  of  organic 
growth  since  it  first  started.  The  different  districts 
still  use  different  dialects,  while  writers  in  all  parts  of 
the  peninsula  have  conformed  their  style,  as  far  as 
possible,  to  early  Tuscan  models.  It  may  be  ques- 
tioned whether  united  Italy,  having  for  the  first  time 
gained  the  necessary  conditions  of  national  concentra- 
tion, is  not  now  at  last  about  to  enter  on  a  new  phase 
of  growth  in  literature,  which,  after  many  years,  will 
make  the  style  of  the  first  authors  more  archaic  than  it 
seems  at  present."  The  immense  difficulty  experienced 
by  so  great  a  writer  as  Manzoni  in  reconciling  vigour 
with  purity  of  diction,  and  his  complaints  of  the  limited 
vocabulary  at  his  disposal,  seem  to  prove  that  these 
impediments  are  not  imaginary.     Since  Symonds  wrote, 


ITALIAN  STYLE  AND  DICTION 


41S 


however,   a   view  differing   in   some  respects  has  been 
expressed  by  one  of  the  few  living  men  who  may  claim 
to   be   regarded   as   masters   of    Italian   prose,  Gabriele 
d'Annunzio.      In   the  dedicatory  preface  to  his   Trionfo 
dclla  Morte  (1894),  D'Annunzio  enters  into  the  question 
of  the  adequacy  of  the  Italian  language  to  express  modern 
ideas,  which  he  emphatically  asserts.    There  is  no  respect, 
he  declares,   in  which   it  need  envy  other   tongues,  or 
anything  that  it  need  wish  to  borrow  from  them.    The 
misfortune  is  that  its  great  resources  are  neglected  by 
modern  writers,  whose  ordinary  vocabulary  is  limited  to 
a  few  hundred  words,  many  of  illegitimate  extraction  or 
hopelessly  disfigured  by  vulgar  usage,  and  these  thrown 
into   sentences   of  nearly   uniform   length,   destitute   of 
logical  connection  and  of  the  rhythmical  accompaniment 
indispensable  to  a  fine  style.     The  remedy  is  a  return  to 
the  old  authors  ;  and,  justly  remarking  that  the  novelists 
of   the   best   period   are   entirely  out  of   harmony  with 
modern  requirements  by  reason  of  their  wholly  objec- 
tive character  and  incapacity  for  psychological  analysis, 
D'Annunzio  seriously  advises  modern  romancers  to  enrich 
their  vocabulary  and  perfect  their  style  by  a  course  of  the 
ancient  ascetic,  casuistical,  and  devotional  writers.     The 
Zolas  of  modern    Italy  resorting  for  instruction  to  St. 
Catherine   of   Siena   would   indeed  afford   a   scene   for 
Aristophanes  ;  yet  from  a  merely  stylistic  point  of  view 
the  advice  is  judicious. 

As  regards  the  ancient  writers,  the  effect  would  be  to 
renovate  them  instead  of  rendering  them  more  archaic, 
as  anticipated  by  Symonds,  so  far^at  least  as  concerns 
their  vocabulary.  Although  perhaps  an  inevitable  tribute 
to  Time  and  Evolution,  it  is  yet  no  gain  to  the  English 
language  or  literature  that  so  much  of  our  early  writers 


4i6 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE 


should  be  obsolete ;  and  Italy  would  do  well  to  preserve 
as  much  as  possible  the  speech  of  the  original  masters  of 
her  tongue,  which  can  be  best  effected  by  keeping  their 
phraseology  in  constant  employment.  It  may  be  hoped 
that  a  standard  of  taste  will  thus  be  created  enabling 
writers  to  deal  satisfactorily  with  the  mass  of  neologisms 
which  the  great  development  of  modern  civilisation 
renders  it  impossible  to  exclude,  but  which,  indiscrimi- 
nately admitted,  threaten  to  swamp  and  debase  the 
national  speech,  or  possibly  to  sunder  the  common  in- 
heritance into  two  languages,  one  for  the  scholar,  the 
other  for  the  multitude.  It  is,  indeed,  a  most  serious 
problem  for  patriotic  scholars  in  all  nations  how  to 
preserve  the  continuity  of  the  national  speech  amid 
the  vicissitudes  of  the  national  life,  and  the  tendencies 
which  in  the  intellectual  as  in  the  physical  sphere  are 
always  at  work  to  wear  all  diversities  down  to  one 
monotonous  level.  The  consolation  is  that,  whereas 
these  agencies  are  mere  unconscious  forces,  called  into 
being  by  causes  independent  of  the  human  will,  the 
resisting  influences  have  their  origin  in  the  will,  and  are 
capable  of  intelligent  direction.  It  should  be  the  task  of 
the  cultivators  of  every  literature  to  ascertain  what  course 
this  literature  has  instinctively  shaped  for  itself;  what 
are  the  dominant  ideas  which  have  determined  the 
course  of  its  development.  In  Italy,  from  the  first 
lyrists  down  to  Carducci,  from  the  lirst  prose  writers 
down  to  D'Annunzio,  the  guiding  principle  would  seem 
to  have  been  the  love  of  perfect  form  and  artistic  finish, 
liable,  like  all  other  meritorious  tendencies,  to  abuse, 
when  its  too  exclusive  pursuit  has  cramped  origin- 
ality ;  to  aberration,  when  writers,  remembering  the  end, 
ha\^  mistaken  the  means ;    but  on  the  whole  a  right 


PROSPECTS  OF  ITALIAN  LITERATURE    417 

and  laudable  aim,  because  in  harmony  with  the  genius 
of  the  people  and  the  language.  As  it  has  been  said  that 
what  is  not  clear  is  not  French,  so  it  might  be  added 
tliat  what  is  not  refined  is  not  Italian. 

Notwithstanding   the    production    of    much    inferior 
work,    this    character    still    appertains   to   the   literature 
in  its  best  contemporary  examples,  the  only  ones  with 
which   posterity  is  likely  to  concern   itself.     The   enor- 
mous  recent   development,  nevertheless,  of  the  sphere 
of    human    interests;    the    creation    of    new    arts    and 
sciences,   necessitating   a    corresponding    expansion    of 
the   resources  of  language ;    the   facility   of  intercourse 
among   peoples,   tending   to   a   cosmopolitanism   which 
continually  threatens  to  obliterate  national  distinctions  ; 
the  formation   of  an  immense   and  imperfectly  trained 
reading  class,  to  whose  tastes  the  majority  of   authors 
must  or  at  all  events  will  condescend— these  are  trying 
circumstances  for   every  literature,   and    especially    for 
one  whose  special  claims  are  polish  and  dignity.     But 
if  it  be  true  that  these  latter  qualities  are  not  imported, 
or  imposed   by  external    pressure,  but   inherent  in  the 
constitution  of  the  nation  itself,  it  may  well  be  hoped 
that  they  will  adapt  themselves  to  the  circumstances  of 
the  present,  without  breach  of  continuity  with  the  past. 
Up  to  the   present   time  this  continuity  appears   to  us 
unbroken,  and  we  have  been  able  to  conceive  of  the  his- 
tory of  Italian  literature  as  biography,  not  so  much  of 
individual  writers  as  of  a  single  fair  spirit  living  through 
them  all,  which  has  moulded,  animated,  and  laid  aside  all 
in  their  turn.     Like  other  finite  existences,  this  spirit  has 
known  infancy,  adolescence,  and  maturity,  and  must  one 
day  know  decay  and  death  ;  but  the  phenomena  accom- 
panying  her  present  development  seem  to  us  rather  to 


41 8  ITALIAN  LITERATURE 

indicate  that,  in  common  with  other  literatures,  she  is 
traversing  a  crisis  than  that  she  is  entering  upon  a  period 
of  decadence.  Evcrv  age  of  letters  has  its  own  peculiar 
peril  •  that  of  ours  is  the  debasement  of  the  standard  ot 
writing  to  the  level  of  imperfectly  educated  readers. 
A<'ainst  this  danger  Italian  literature  should  be  especially 
protected  by  its  close  affinity  to  the  languages  of  anti- 
quity, by  uniform  practice  and  tradition  ever  since  Dante 
called  Love  the  fountain  of  fair  speech^  and  by  a  refine- 
ment so  deeply  imbibed  that  it  seems  to  have  become  a 
part  of  itself. 

>  "  Risponde  ilfonte  del gtntil parlare" 

—Sonnet  XLII. 


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL  NOTE 


The  number  of  books  which  may  be  usefully  consulted  on  various 
points  of  Italian  literature  is  very  considerable.  Only  the  most 
important  can  be  named  here,  and  those  for  the  most  part  such 
as  are  written  in  English  or  Italian,  and  fall  strictly  under  the 
heads  of  literary  history  or  bibliography,  or  standard  editions  with 
indispensable  commentaries.  Many  books  not  referable  to  any 
of  these  classes,  such  as  Burckhardt's  Cicerone,  Des  Brosses's 
Letters,  or  Dennistoun's  Lives  of  the  Dukes  of  Urbino,  are  inci- 
dentally of  high  value,  but  cannot  be  enumerated  in  a  biblio- 
graphical list.  Some  few  biographies,  however,  have  been  added 
which  may  be  deemed  essential.  The  dates  given  are  in  general 
those  of  the  best  or  most  accessible  editions.  Some  of  the  most 
important  are  out  of  print. 

GENERAL  COLLECTIONS  OF  ITALIAN  AUTHORS 

D'Ancona  and  Bacci,  Manuale  delta  Lettcratiira  italiana,  5  vols. 
1893-95.  A  most  admirable  selection,  both  for  its  soundness  of  judg- 
ment and  its  comprehensiveness.  The  notices  of  the  various  authors 
prefixed  to  the  selections  are  excellent  from  the  biographical  and 
bibliographical  points  of  view,  and  also  from  the  critical  when  criticism 
is  sufficiently  fiill,  which  is  not  always  the  case.— Cantu,  La  Lcttera- 
tura  italiana  esposta,  &c.,  1851,  and  Morandi,  Antoiogia,  1893,  are 
inferior  to  D'Ancona  and  Bacci,  yet  deserve  attention. 

GENERAL  HISTORIES 

Tiraboschi,  Storia  delta  Letteratura  italiana,  &c.,  1822.  The 
Italian  literary  historian  par  excellence,  characterised  at  pp.  295,  296 

of  this  book.     There  is  a  continuation   by  Lombardi.  —  Sismondi, 

410 


ilaK  [liff  illMTtfiWlWMMMIIiilMMiiHilB 


""'•"— ^ 


420 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


421 


Histoire  de  la  Littirature  dit  Midi  de  V Europe ;  numerous  editions 
and  translations,  but  hardly  equal  to  its  reputation.— Ginguene,  His- 
toire lit:t'raire  d'ltalie,  14  vols.,  181 1-35  [the  last  four  volumes  by 
Salfi].  A  work  of  extraordinary  diligence  and  erudition,  on  no  account 
to  be  neglected  by  the  few  who  may  have  time  to  read  it,  though 
written  from  an  eighteenth-century  point  of  view  now  entirely  anti- 
quated. The  chief  literary  defect  is  the  immoderate  space  devoted  to 
unravelling  the  plots  of  uninteresting  epics  and  dramas  ;  this  excess 
of  diligence,  however,  renders  it  a  valuable  source  of  information 
concerning  minor  authors  frequently  omitted. — This  is  also  a  valuable 
feature  of  Corniani,  /  Secoli  della  Letteratura  itaiiana,  1832-33. — 
Dartoli,  S/oria  dclla  Letteratura  itaiiana^  1875.  This  unfinished  work 
is  the  best  authority  for  the  history  of  the  early  period,  beyond  which 
it  does  not  as  yet  extend.  It  is  full  of  learning  and  research,  but 
prolix. — Gaspary,  Geschichte  der  italienischen  Litteratur^  &c.,  1885. 
Another  important  work  unfortunately  left  incomplete,  breaking  ofif  in 
the  Cinque  Cento.  The  best  of  all  the  larger  Italian  literary  histories, 
but  deficient  in  form,  rather  a  quarry  of  material  than  a  regular  edifice. 
An  English  translation  by  H.  Oelsner  is  in  preparation. 

HISTORIES  OF  SPECIAL  DEPARTMENTS 

Crescimbeni,  Istoria  della  volgar  Poesia^  1730.  Quadrio,  Della 
Storia  e  della  ragione  dogni  Poesia,  1739-52.  Standard  histories 
long  out  of  print,  but  to  be  found  in  all  good  public  libraries. — 
Muratori,  Della  perfetta  Poesia,  1821.  Characterised  at  p.  295.^ 
Ruth,  Geschichte  der  italienischen  Poesie,  1844-47.— Loise,  histoire  de 
la  Poesie  en  Italic^  1895. — Carduct  i,  Studi  l.etterari^  1880.  Valuable 
criticisms  on  various  periods  of  Italian  literature. — An  excellent 
anthology  of  the  dicta  of  modern  Italian  critics  has  been  compiled  by 
Morandi,  Antoio-^ia,  &c.,  1893. 

ABRIDGED  LITERARY  HISTORIES 

Emiliani-Giudici,  Compendio  della  Storia  della  Letteratura  italiana^ 
1855.  Wry  sound,  but  verbose.— Settembrini,  Lezioni  della  L.ettera- 
turd  italianay  1877.  Perhaps  on  the  whole  the  most  recommendable 
of  all  the  minor  Italian  literary  histories.  The  author,  an  exile  lately 
restored  to  his  country,  is  inspired  with  a  spirit  of  patriotism  which 
renders  his  work  singularly  vital  and  energetic,  and  the  young  men 
to  whom  his  lectures  are  addressed  are  ever  before  him.     Notwith- 


i 


♦ 


standing  occasional  paradoxes,  his  appreciations  are  in  general  sound, 
although  he  is  naturally  inclined  to  bear  hardly  upon  authors  who  fail 
to  attain  his  standard  of  patriotism. — De  Sanctis,  Storia  della  Let- 
teratura italiana^  1879.  Very  good,  but  deficient  in  the  spirit  and 
fire  of  Settembrini. — Fenini,  L^etteratura  italiana^  1889.  The  model  of 
an  abbreviated  handbook ;  and  the  same  may  be  said  of  its  English 
counterpart,  Snell's  Primer  of  Italian  Literature^  1893. 

POPULAR  POETRY 

'KvDdx^xx^  Storia  della  Poesia  popolare  ztaliana,  1877. — D'Ancona,  La 
Poesia  popolare  italiana,  1878. — Tommaseo,  Canti  popolari^  1841-42. 
— Tigri,  Canti popolari  Toscani,  1869.  See  also  J.  A.  Symonds's  essay 
in  his  Italian  Sketches  and  Studies,  1879,  a  new  edition  of  which  is  in 
preparation. 

PREDECESSORS  AND  CONTEMPORARIES  OF  DANTE 

Rossetti,  Dante  and  his  Circle,  1893.      Consists  chiefly  of  transla 
tions  of  the  highest  merit.    The  information  it  contains  is  chieflyderived 
from   Nannucci,  Manuale  della  Letteratura  del  prima  Secolo,  1843; 
and  Trucchi,  Poesie  italiane  inedite  di  dugento  autori,  1846. 

DANTE 

There  is,  perhaps,  as  much  commentary  upon  Dante  as  upon  all  the 
rest  of  Italian  literature  put  together.  The  most  charming  edition, 
when  comment  is  not  needed,  is  that  of  Dr.  Edward  Moore, 
1894,  where  all  Dante's  works  are  compressed  into  one  small  and 
exquisitely  printed  volume  ;  but  few  students  can  dispense  with  a 
commentary,  and  it  is  generally  advisable  to  read  Dante  in  a  modern 
Italian  edition,  with  notes  in  that  language.  Of  several  excellent 
editions  of  this  description,  the  best,  perhaps,  is  Fraticelli's,  1892. 
YoY  profound  students,  Ferrazzi,  Manuale  Dantesco,  1865,  and  Poletto, 
Dizionario  Dantesco,  1885,  are  indispensable.  A  similar  and  not  less 
important  work  in  English,  by  Mr.  Paget  Toynbee,  is  now  in  the 
press.  Of  the  numerous  introductions  to  the  Divine  Comedy,  the 
following  may  be  recommended  to  English  readers :  Scartazzini, 
Companion  to  Dante,  translated  by  A.  J.  Butler,  1895  ;  Symonds, 
Introduction  to  Dante,  1890;  Maria  Francesca  Rossetti,  A  Shadow 
of  Dante,  1884  ;  Dean  Church,  Dante,  1878  ;  and  A.  J.  Butler,  Dante^ 
28 


I 


422  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

1S95.  Of  these,  Scartazzini  is  the  scholar  and  Dantophilist,  Symonds 
and  Butler  are  the  efficient  critics  from  the  modern  point  of  view,  and 
Miss  Rossetti  and  Dean  Church  represent  Dante's  own  position. 
Moore's  Studies  in  Dante,  now  in  course  of  publication,  and  Wick- 
steed's  Sermons  on  Dante,  have  a  wider  scope  than  that  of  an  intro- 
ductory manual.  The  point  of  Dante's  influence  on  posterity  has 
been  investigated  by  Oelsner,  Itifluence  of  Dante  on  Modern  Thought^ 
1895;  and  his  relation  to  his  own  countrymen  is  discussed  in  the 
third  volume  of  Dean  Plumptre's  translation  of  the  Divine  Comedy. 
He  is  treated  from  the  neo-catholic  point  of  view  by  Ozanam,  Dante  et 
la  Philosophie  catholique,  1845. 

The  best  editions  of  Dante's  lyrical  poems,  including  the  very 
many  falsely  attributed  to  him,  and  of  his  Vita  Nuova  and  other 
prose  works,  are  those  by  Fraticelli.  The  best  English  translation  of 
the  Vita  Nuoi'a  is  Rossetti's  ;  but  other  translators  (Martin,  1862  ; 
Norton,  1893  ;  Boswell,  1895  ;  and  the  Austrian  translator  Federn, 
1897)  have  done  much  more  for  the  illustration  of  the  text.  A 
beautiful  work  on  Dante,  sein  Leben  und  sein  Wcrk,  sein  Verhdltniss 
zur  Kunst  und  zur  Politik,  by  Franz  Xaver  Kraus,  has  just  been 
published  in  Berlin. 

PETRARCH 

No  authority  for  Petrarch's  life  is  equal  to  his  own  letters,  published 
complete  in  the  edition  of  Fracassetti,  1859-63.  An  English  transla- 
tion has  been  announced.  There  are  recent  biographies  corresponding 
to  the  requirements  of  modern  research  by  Geiger,  1874,  and  in  the 
first  volume  of  Koerting's  Geschichte  der  Litteratur  Italiens,  1878. 
Petrarch's  position  and  resources  as  a  scholar  have  been  thoroughly 
investigated  by  Pierre  de  Nolhac,  Petrarque  et  V Humanisme^  1892. 
The  best  commentary  is  Leopardi's,  always  printed  with  the  current 
Florentine  edition  of  the  Canzoniere,  The  most  critical  edition  is 
Mestica's,  1896.  The  best  literary  criticism  is  Zumbini's  Studi  sul 
Petrarca,  1895. 

BOCCACCIO 

Koerting's  life  of  Boccaccio  in  the  second  volume  of  his  Geschichte 
is  the  best ;  and  the  English  reader  may  consult  Symonds,  Giovanni 
Boccaccio^  1895. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


ITALIAN  NOVEL 


423 


Perhaps  the  fullest  account  of  the  Italian  novelists  in  an  English 
book  is  that  in  Dunlop's  History  of  Fiction,  as  edited  by  Wilson, 
1888.  See  also  Papanti,  Catalogo  dci  Novelieri  italiani,  1871,  and  the 
notices  prefixed  to  the  specimens  translated  in  Thomas  Roscoe's  Italian 
Novelists,  1832. 

ITALIAN  DRAMA 

The  fullest  accounts  of  individual  Italian  dramatists  will  be  found 
in  Ginguene.  The  beginning  of  the  Italian  drama  is  investigated 
by  D'Ancona  in  his  Origini  del  Teatro  in  Italia,  1891  ;  see  also  the 
volumes  (iv.-vii.)  devoted  to  Italy  in  Klein's  Geschichte  des  Dramas, 
D'Ancona  has  written  a  monograph  on  the  Sucre  Rappresentazioni 
(see  p.  226).  The  Coimnedia  delV  Arte  (pp.  305-307)  is  treated  in 
Scherillo's  monograph  with  this  title,  in  Maurice  Sand's  Masques  et 
Boiiffons,  and  in  Symonds's  preface  to  his  translation  of  the  memoirs 
of  Carlo  Gozzi,  1892. 

ROMANTIC  POETRY 

This  subject  is  most  fully  treated  in  general  histories,  whether  of 
Italian  or  romantic  literature.  Panizzi's  introduction  to  his  edition 
of  Boiardo  and  Ariosto  (1831),  though  in  many  respects  erroneous  or 
antiquated,  deserves  attention,  as  does  Ferrario,  Storia  ed  Analisi 
degli  antic  hi  Romanzi  di  Cavalleria,  1828-29.  Ariosto's  indebtedness 
to  earlier  romancers  has  been  investigated  by  Rajna,  Le  Fonti  delP 
Orlando  Furioso.  Leigh  Hunt's  Stories  from  the  Italian  Poets  is  a 
charming  companion  to  Italian  chivalric  poetry. 

ITALIAN  RENAISSANCE 

The  best  view  of  the  Renaissance  as  a  whole  is  to  be  obtained  from 
Symonds's  great  work,  The  Petiaissance  in  Italy,  1875-81.  A  new 
edition  is  in  course  of  issue.  Much  of  this  comprehensive  book  relates 
to  politics,  and  much  to  art ;  but  so  complete  in  the  Renaissance  period 
was  the  interpenetration  of  all  forms  of  mental  activity  that  no  part 
of  the  work  is  uceless  for  the  study  of  literature.  The  same  may  be 
said  of  almost  all  modern  biographies  of  leading  Italians  of  the  period, 
of  most  collections  of  letters,  and  of  such  books  as  Bisticci's  memoirs 
of  his  contemporaries  (p,   107).     A  useful  abridged  account  of  the 


^24  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

scholars  of  the  early  period  of  the  Renaissance  will  be  found  in 
Villari's  Life  of  Machiavelli ;  and  authors  of  later  date  are  noticed 
in  Roscoe's  Life  of  Leo  X.  The  dissemination  of  literature  upon  the 
invention  of  printing  is  illustrated  by  Horatio  Brown  in  his  Venetian 
Printing  Press,  1892. 

TASSO 

All  previous  biographies  are  superseded  by  Solerti's,  1895. 

EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY 

Crescimbeni,  Vife  degP  Arcadl  Illusiri,  i-jo^-i^.-C^ninV  A  bate 
Parini  e  la  Lombardia  net  Secolo  XK//A-Carducci,  Panni.-^ 
Vernon  Lee,  Studies  of  the  Eighteenth  Century  in  Italy,  1880.  Much 
of  this  brilliant  book  is  devoted  to  music  and  the  stage,  but  the  literary 
element  is  never  long  absent. 

NINETEENTH  CENTURY 

The  most  valuable  essays  on  Italian  literature  in  the  nineteenth 
century  are  at  present  to  be  found  in  periodicals,  especially  the 
Nuo%fa  Antolo^ia  and  the  Deutsche  Rundschau;  in  general  works  on 
Italy  like  Mariotti's  ;  in  the  biographies  and  correspondence  of  dis- 
tinguished authors  of  the  period,  and  in  such  monographs  upon  them 
as  Zumbini's  Sulk  Poeste  di  Vinccnzo  Monti.  Modem  Italian  poetry 
is  well  treated  by  W.  D.  Howells,  Modern  Italian  Poets,  1887  ;  by 
F.  Sewall  in  his  introduction  to  his  translations  from  Carducci,  1892  ; 
and  in  the  preface  and  biographical  introductions  to  Greene's  Italian 
Lyrists  of  To- Day ^  ii>9i. 


\ 


INDEX 


Adekhty  346 

Adone,  273,  274 

Alamanni,  Luigi,  his  Girone,  152;  his 

didaclic  poetry,   202 ;   his  satires, 

203 
Albert!,  Leone  Battista,  105-107 
Aleardi,  Aleardo,  388,  389 
Alfieri,   Count    Vittorio,    biography, 

316-319;    tragedies,    319,    320; 

minor  writings,  32 1 
Algarotti,  Francesco,  296 
Alphonso,  Duke  of  Ferrara,  240,  244 
Amari,  Michele,  382 
Amicis,  Edmondo  de,  408 
Affiinta,  233,  234 
Ammirato,  Scipione,  173 
Andreini,  233 
Angioleri,  Cecco,  20 
Annunzio,  Gabriele  (i\  as  poet,  402- 

406 ;    as    novelist,    409 ;    on    the 

Italian  language,  415 
Arcadia,  123,  124 
Arcadian  Academy,  279-298 
Aretino,  Pietro,  182 ;    his  comedies, 

232 
Ariosto,  Lodovico,   biography,    140- 
143 ;    his    Orlando  Furioso^    143- 
154;    minor  poetical  works,    151; 

satires,  203 ;  comedies,  230,  231 
Arnaboldi,  Alessandro,  408 
Arnaldo  da  Brescia^  350 
Arnold,  Matthew,  on  Alfieri,  320 
Asolaniy  Gli^  180 
Azeglio,  Massimo  d',  349,  384 


Baccelli,  Alfredo,  408 

Balbo,  Cesare,  383 

Ballata,  the,  10 

Bandello,  Matteo,  218,  219 

Barberino,  Francesco,  21 

Baretti,  Giuseppe,  297 

Barrili,  Giulio,  409 

Basile,  Giovanni,  Pentanierone,  221 

Bassvilliana,  La,  334 

Beatrice  de'  Portinari,  Dante's  lady, 
25,  26,  32 

Beccaria,  Cesare,  293 

Belli,  Gioacchino,  368,  369 

Bello,  Francesco,  138 

Bembo,  Pietro,  his  history  of  Venice, 
174,  175;  his  Asolani,  180;  his 
letters,  183  ;  his  poems,  188,  189 

Benivieni,  Girolamo,  1 21 

Bentivoglio,  Cardinal  Guide,  269,  273 

Beolco,  Angelo,  232 

Berchet,  Giovanni,  386 

Berni,  Francesco,  his  humorous 
poetry,  204,  205  ;  his  rifacinienio 
of  Boiardo,  206,  207, 

Bibbiena,  Cardinal,  142,  230 

Bible,  translated  into  Italian,  113 
Biondo,  Flavio,  III 

Bisticci,  Vespasiano  da,  107 
Boccaccio,  Giovanni,  his  sonnet  on 
Dante,  31  ;  his  friendship  with 
Petrarch,  61,  84;  his  biography, 
82-85  ;  his  romances,  85-87  ;  his 
Decameron,  87-90  ;  his  poetry,  91- 
95  ;  his  character,  96 


L 


425 


J I 


426 


INDEX 


I 


INDEX 


427 


Boccalini,  Trajano,  270,  271 
Boiardo.  Matteo  Maria,  his  Orlando 

Innamorato,   131,  13^  '*  ^^^  \^x\Q.'i, 

139  ;  his  Timone,  230 
Bonghi,  Ruggiero,  4^1 
Borgia,  Girolamo,  172  ; 

Botta,  Carlo,  380 
Bovio,  Giuseppe,  408 
BraccioHni,  Francesco,  209 
Bracciolini,  Poggio,  m 
Bracco,  Roberto,  408 
Bruni,  Leonardo,  his  life  of  Dante, 

27  ;  translates  Plato  and  Aristotle, 

III 

Bruno,  Giordano,  260-263 

Bryant,  339 
Buonarotli,  M.  A.,  232 
Burchiello,  Domenico,  loi 
Byron,  354 

Campanella,  Tommaso,  263,  265 
Canlii,  Cesare,  349i  3^1 
Canzone,  the,  8 
Canzoniere,  II,  66,  67 
Capponi,  Gino,  104 
Capuana,  Luigi,  408 
Carducci,  Giosue,  sonnet  on  Dante, 
52  ;  his  beneficial   influence,  328  ; 
leading  position  in  modern  Italian 
literature,  396,  397  ;  characteristics 
of  his  poetry,  397-401  ;  founder  of 
a  school  of  poets,  402 
Carmasnola,  346 
Caro,  Annibale,  192 
Carrer,  Luigi,  387 
Casa,  Giovanni  della,  179,  1 93 
Casii,  Giovanni  Battista,  302,  303 
Castiglione,  Baldassare,  his  Cortegiano, 

178-180 
Cavalcanti,  Guido,  17,  18 
Cavalieri,  Tommaso  de',  197 
Cavallotti,  Felice,  407,  408 
Cayley,   C.  B.,   on   Petrarch's   Can- 
zonieret  66,  67 


Cellini,  Benvenuto,  his  autobiography, 

177,  178 
Cerlone,  Francesco,  307 
Charles  V.,  Caro's  sonnet  upon,  192 
Chaucer,  61,  90,  91,  98 
Chiabrera,  Gabriello,  276-279,  397 
Chiari,  Abate,  308 
Chiarini,  Giuseppe,  411 
Chrysoloras,  Emanuel,  in 
Cielo  dal  Carno,  7 
Cino  da  Pistoia,  18-20 
Cinthio,    Giovanni    Battista  Giraldi, 

219,  229 
Ciriaco  di  Ancona,  105 
Clement  VL,  Pope,  58,  69 
Clement  VIL,  Pope,  158 
Clement  VI IL,  Pope,  246,  257 
Gierke,  Miss  Ellen,  translations  by, 

93.  JI7»  I35i  148,  250,  347 
Clough,  quoted,  33 1 
Coleridge,  S.  T.,  35,  61,  62,  361.,  390 
Colletta,  Pietro,  380,  381 
Colonna,  Cardinal,  patron  of  Petrarch, 

55.  59 
Colonna,  Francesco,  108 

Colonna,  Viltoria,  her  sonnet  to 
Bembo,  191  ;  poems  on  her  hus- 
band, 194;  Michael  Angelo's 
attachment  to  her,  197 

Commedia  delC  arte,  305,  306 

Compagni,  Dino,  chronicle  attributed 
to,  27,  103,  104 

Comparetti,  Domenico,  411,  413 

Conti,  Giusto  de',  loi 

ConvitOt  II,  34 

Coppetta,  Francesco,  203,  204 

Coronal  of  Sonnets,  Tasso's,  255 

Cortegiano,  II,  1 78-1 80 

Cosmo  de'  Medici,  Grand  Duke  of 
Tuscany,  166 

Cossa,  Pietro,  391,  392 

Costanzo,  Angelo  di,  his  history  of 
Naples,  176;  his  poems,  193,  194 

Courthope,  W.  J.,  146 


i\ 


Crescimbeni,  Giovanni  Mario,  294, 
29S 

Dacre,  Lady,  translation  from  Pulci 
by,  130 

Dante  Alighieri,  biography,  24-3 1  ; 
Vita  Nuot'a,  31-34;  Convito,  34- 
36;  De  Monarchia,  36,  37;  Divina 
Commedia,  40-52  ;  Petrarch  upon 
him,  63,  77  ;  Boccaccio  upon  him, 

93.96 
Davila,  Enrico  Caterino,  268 

Decamerone,  II,  88-90 

De  Mouarchia,  36,  37 

Denina,  Carlo,  296 

De  Vulgari  Eloquio,  36 

Discorsi  sopra  Tito  Livio,  161 

Divina  Commedia,  La,  40-52 

EsTE,  house  of,  141,  144 

Farini,  Luigi  Carlo,  383 
Farini,  Sal  vat  ore,  409 
Ferrari,  Giuseppe,  379 
P'iamma,  Gabriele,  198 
Fiammetta,Boccaccio's/««iZ»/ora/rt,83 
Fiammetta,  La^  86-88 
Filangieri,  Gaetano,  293 
Filicaja,  Vincenzo,  283-285 
Filocopo,  II,  85,  86 
Filostrato,  II,  91,  92 
Firenzuola,  Agnolo,  182,  217 
Fogazzaro,  Antonio,  408,  409 
Folengo,  Teofilo,  207 
■  Folgore  di  San  (ieminiano,  20 
Forliijuerri,  Nicolo,  210 
Foscolo,  Ugo,  life  and  works,  337- 

341 

Francis  of  Assisi,  St.,  16 

Frederick  IL,  Emperor  of  Germany, 

6,7 
Frezzi,  Frederico,  1 00 


Galiani,  Ferdinando,  294 

Galileo,  259 

Gallina,  Giaclnto,  408 

Gelli,  Giovanni  Battista,  181 

Gemma   Donati,    Dante's   wife,    28, 

29 
Genovesi,  Antonio,  294 
Gentili,  Alberico,  266 
Gerusalemme  Liberata,  La,  246-253 
Giannone,  Pietro,  291,  292 
Gil  Vicente,  225 
Ginguene,  77,  143 
Gioljerti,  Vincenzo,   370,   371,    377, 

378 
Giordani,  Pietro,  369,  370 

Giorno,  II,  299 

Giostra,  La,  117 

Giovanni  Fiorentino,  102,  215,  216 

Giovio,  Paolo,  172 

Giusti,  Giuseppe,  365-368 

Giustiniani,  Leonardo,  102 

Glassford,    James,    translation    from 

Sannazaro  by,  187 
Goethe,  on  /  Promessi  Sposi,  348 
Goldoni,     Carlo,     controversy     with 

Gozzi,  308 ;  life,  321-323 ;  comedies, 

323.  324 
Gosse,     Edmund,    translation    of   a 

sonnet  of  Redi  by,  282 

Gozzi,  Carlo,  life  and  dramatic  writ- 
ings, 307-309 

Gozzi,  Gaspare,  297 

Graf,  Arturo,  408 

Gravina,  Vincenzo,  298,  3 10 

Grazzini,  Antonio  Maria,  219 

Greene,  G.  A.,  translation  from 
D'Annunzio,  405 ;  hxs  Italian  Lyrists 
of  To-Day,  408 

Grossi,  Tommaso,  349 

Guarini,  Giovanni  Battista,  Pastor 
Fido,  234-236 

Gubernatis,  Angelo  de,  41 1 

Guerazzi,  Francesco  Domenico,  39I 

Guerrini,  Olindo,  407 


428 


INDEX 


INDEX 


429 


Guerzoni,  Giuseppe,  411 
Guicciardini,  Francesco,  his  life,  164- 

166  ;  history  of  his  limes,  166,  167  ; 

miscellaneous  writings,  168,  169 
Guidi,  Alessandro,  285 
Guidiccioni,  Guido,  191,  192 
Guinicelii,  Guido,  15 
Guittone  di  Arezzo,  13,  14 

Homeric  epic,  probable  genesis  of, 

154.  155  ,    .        r 

Howells,  W.    II.,    translation    from 

Giusti  by,  367 
Hunt,  Leigh,  translations  by,  78,  205, 

235;   on   Pulci,    130;   on   Tasso's 

Afninta,  233 
Hypnerotomachia  Poliphili^  108 

IppoLiTO  d'Este,  Cardinal  of  Ferrara, 
141 


JACOPINO  DE'  ToDI,  21 

Jacopo  da  Lentino,  8 
Jacopo  Ortis,  338,  339 


Lanzi,  Luigi,  296 

Latini,  Brunetto,  21,  22 

Laura,    Petrarch's    innamorata,    55, 

67-73 
Lee,  Vernon  [Miss  Violet  Paget],  280, 

297.  307,  309.  392 
LcoX.,  Pope,  142,  158,  165.  175 
Leonora  d'Este,   sister  of  t>ie  Duke 

of  Ferrara,  241 
Leopardi,  Giacomo,  his  commentary 
on  Petrarch,  81  ;  his  Paralipomeni, 
210  ;  biography,  354-357  ;  as  philo- 
sopher,  357,  35^  J  as  poet,  359- 
362;  his  prose  works,  362,  363; 
as  moralist,  363,  364 


Leti,  Gregorio,  269,  270 

Lippi,  Lorenzo,  209 

Lorenzo  de'  Medici,  his  poetry  and 

patronage  of  literature,  11 3-1 16 
Luigi    d'Este,    Cardinal   of  Ferrara, 

240 


Macgregor,  Major,  translation  from 
Petrarch  by,  58 

Machiavelli,  Niccolo,  his  life,  157- 
159;  his  Prince,  1 59- 16 1  ;  Dis- 
courses on  Livy's  Decades ^  161  ; 
History  of  Florence^  1 62,  163  ;  his 
poems,  203  ;  his  comedies,  231 

Maffei,  Scipione,  Marquis,  295,  315 

Magno,  Celio,  198 

Mamiani,  Terenzio,  379 

Mamiragola,  La,  231 

Manzoni,  Alessandro,  life  and  cha- 
racter,  342-344;  ly"cal  poetry,  345  ; 
dramas,    346;    /  Promessi   Sposi, 

348,  349 
Marini,  Giovanni  Batlista,  273-275 
Marini,  Giuseppe  Ambrogio,  287 
Marradi,  Giovanni,  408 
Massuccio  Salernitano,  216 
Mazzini,  Giuseppe,  370-374 
Mazzuchelli,  Giovanni  Maria,  295 
Meli,  Giovanni,  301,  302 
Menzini,  Benedetto,  285 

Merope,  315 

Mestica,   Giovanni,  commentator  on 

Petrarch,  74,  80,  379 
Metastasio,   Pietro,  biography,   310- 
312  ;  works  and  literary  character- 
istics, 312-315 
Micali,  Giuseppe,  382 
Michael  Angelo,  as  a  poet,  197 
Mie  Prigioni,  Lc,  351 
Milton,  compared  with  Dante,  49,  50  ; 
indebtedness    to   Sannazaro,    187  ; 
study  of  Italian  models,   199  5  «" 
the  decay  of  Italian  literature   in 


\ 


\ 


V 


his  time,  238 ;  influence  of  Tasso 

on  his  versification,  245  ;  compared 

with  Tasso,  248,  249 
Moliere,  323,  324 
Molza,  Francesco  Maria,  189,  190 
Mondo  CreatOy  II,  245 
Montanelli,  Giuseppe,  384 
Montemagno,  Bonaccorso  da,  102 
Monti,   Vincenzo,    life    and    works, 

333-337  ;  a  reviver  of  Dante,  344 
Morgante  Maggiore^  II,  1 28-1 3 1 
Muratori,  Lodovico  Antonio,  295 

Napoleon,  the  true  founder  of  Italian 

unity,  353 
Nardi,  Jacopo,  172 
Navagero,  Andrea,  172 
Negri,  Ada,  408 
Nencioni,  Enrico,  411 
Niccolini,  Giovanni  Battista,  350 
Nicholas  v.,  Pope,  112 
Niebuhr,  376 
Nievo,  Ippolito,  391 
Nolhac,    Pierre     de,     Petrarque    et 

V Humanisme,  65 
Novellino,  II,  85 

Ojetti,  Ugo,  325,  412 
Ongaro,  Francesco  dall',  387 
Opera,  the,  313.  3  M 
Ophelia,  124 
Orfeo,  233 

Orlando  Furioso,  I43~^5I 
Orlando  Innamorato,  1 32- 1 38 
Ottonieri,  Filippo,  pseudonym  of  Leo- 
pardi, 364 
Ovid,  145 

Pallavicino,  Cardinal  Sforza,  267, 

268 
Palmieri,  Matteo,  loi 
Pan izzi,  Antonio,  li,  129,   130,  1 38, 

139,  143 
Panzacchi,  Enrico,  408 


Parini,  Giuseppe,  299-301 
Paruta,  Pietro,  174,  1 75 
Pascoli,  Giuseppe,  408 
Pastor  Fido,  II,  234,  235 
Paterno,  Lodovico,  203 
Patmore,  Coventry,  97,  148,  403 
Paul  IIL,  Pope,  175.  237 
Paul  v.,  Pope,  267 
Petrarca,  Francesco,  biography,  53- 
61  ;  his  Latin  poetry,  61-63  ;  other 
Latin   writings,   63,   64;    epistles, 
64,  65;   classical  scholarship,  65; 
his  passion  for  Laura,  66-73  ;  his 
Canzoniere^  73-79  5   his  character, 
79,  80 
Pellico,  Silvio,  351 
Piccolomini,  Alessandro,  181 
Pindemonte,  Ippolito,  his  sonnet  on 
Petrarch's  Laura,  72 ;  his  life  and 
writings,  341,  342 
Pius  11. ,  Pope  [Enea  Silvio  Picco- 
lomini], 105 
Pius  IV.,  Pope,  237 
Placci,  Carlo,  409 
Pletho,  Gemistus,  III 
Poliziano,   Angelo,    his    poetry  and 
scholarship,    116-119;    his    Orfeo, 
227,  233 
Polo,  Marco,  105 
Pontano,  Giovanni,  107,  108 
Porto,  Luigi  da,  217 
Prati,  Giovanni,  387,  388 
Principe,  II,  1 58-161 
Promessi  Sposi,  I,  348,  349 
Proven9al  literature,  4-6 
Pulci,  Luca,  121 

Pulci,  Luigi,  his  Morgantt  Maggiore, 
128-131 


Ranieri,  Antonio,  356 
Rapisardi,  Mario,  408 
Rappresentazione  Sacra,  22 
Reali  di  Francia,  /,  128 


430 


INDEX 


Redi,  Francesco,  281,  282 

Reeve,  Henry,  81 

Ridella,  Franco,  357 

Romagnosi,  Giovanni  Domenico,  378 

Rosa,  Sal  vat  or,  286 

Roscoe,  William,  189,  196 

Rosmini-Serbali,  Antonio,  378 

Rossetti,  Dante  Gabriel,  translations 

by,  1,  8,  9.  15.  19.  20,  22,  34,  95» 

icx),  102 
Rossetti,  Gabriel,  386,  387 
Rossi,  J.  V.  [Nicius  Erythrxus],  269, 

277,  287 
Rousseau,  329 
Rucellai,  Giovanni,  202 


Sabadino  degli  Arienti,  217 
Sacchetti,  Franco,  102,  214,  215 
Sade,  AbW  de,  his  theory  respecting 

Petrarch's  Laura,  68-71 
Sannazaro,  Jacopo,  his  life,  122;  his 

Arcadia,  1 23,  1 24;  his  Latin  and 

Italian  poetry,  187 
Sarpi,  Pietro,  267,  268 
Savonarola,  Girolamo,  1 21 
Secchia  Rapita,  La,  208,  209 
Senuccio  del  Bene,  loi 
Sepolcri,  /,  339 
Serao,  Matilda,  409 
Settembrini,  Luigi,    124,    219,    243, 

274,  344 
Bewail,  Frank,  translation  from  Car- 

ducci,  401 

Shakespeare,  Othello,  219;  Measure 
for  Measure,  219,  229;  rimon  of 
Athens,  230 ;  sonnets,  255 

Shelley,  17,  27,  35.  4i.  M4.  3^0 

Sicilian  octave,  the,  10 

Sidney,  Sir  Philip,  124,  262 

Sixtus  v..  Pope,  270 

Sulerti,  243 

Song  of  Roland,  128 

Sonnet,  the,  9,  284 


Spenser,  134,  146,  329.  403 

Speroni,  Sperone,  229 

Stael,  Madame  de,  her  Corinne,  333, 

354 
Stampa,  Gaspara,  195 

Sligliani,  Tommaso,  275 

Straparola,  his  Notti  Piacevoli,  220 

Swinburne,  quoted,  373 

Symonds,  J.  A.,  cited,  26,  44f  48, 
106,  118,  190,  197.  232,  234,  260, 
309,  323,  414  ;  translations  by,  120, 
265 

Tansillo,  Luigi,  his  life  and  poems, 

195-197 
Tasso,  Bernardo,  his  Amadigi,  152; 
his  sonnets,  191  ;   his  misfortunes, 

239 
Tasso,   Torquato,  his  Rinaldo,  152; 

Torrismondo,  229  ;    Aminta,  233, 

234  ;  his  life.  238-246  ;  ferusalem 

Delivered,  246-254  ;  minor  poems, 

254,  255  ;  his  dialogues,  266 ;  his 

sonnet  to  Stigliani,  275  ;  his  patri- 

otic  feeling,  352 

Tassoni,  Alessandro,  208,  209 

Telesio,  Bernardo.  260 

Teseide,  La,  91,  92 

Testa,  Giovanni  Batlista,  381 

Testi,  Fulvio,  279,  280 

Tiralxjschi,  Girolamo,  295,  296 

Tomlinson,  C.,  81 

Tommaseo,  Niccolo,  384,  385 

Trissino,  Giovanni  Giorgio,  his  Ltalia 
Ltberata,  153,  154;  \i\s  Sophonisba, 
228 

Troya,  Carlo,  382,  383 

Turpin,  Archbishop  of  Rheims,  127 

Uberti,  Fazio  degli,  99,  i<» 

Valla,  Lorenzo,  1 1 1 
Valle,  Pietro  della,  27 1 


INDEX 


431 


'» 


Vanini,  Giulio  Cesare,  265 

Varchi,  Benedetto,  172 

Vasari,  Giorgio,  his  lives  of  Italian 

artists,  176,  1 77 
Verga,  Giovanni,  410 
Verri,  Alessandro,  303 
Vico,  Giovanni  Battista,  290,  291 
Villani,  Giovanni,  104 
Villari,  Pasquale,  on  Guicciardini,  167, 

168;  his  writings,  411 
Vita  Nuova,  Im,  32-34 


Wells,  C,  215 

Whitman,  Walt,  and  Carducci,  401 

Wordsworth,  200,  277,  402 


Zanella,  Giacomo,  389-391 
Zappi,  Faustina,  299 
Zappi,  Felice,  298 
Zeno,  Apostolo,  310 
Zuccoli,  Luciano,  409 


(2) 


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